More and more rape victims are being murdered in Jaffna, reports Uthayan newspaper.

According to a legal official at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, rape and sexual abuse is increasingly being followed by murder.

India’s Union Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan has reiterated his call for India not to train Sri Lankan forces.

The Sri Lankan Army’s commander for Jaffna, Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, will take up a new post from Monday.

"We cannot allow people to go about projecting false propaganda on human right violations against the country. These people don't even know the meaning of the term human rights."

The Palestinian Authority will confer the president of Sri Lanka with its highest accolade, the ‘Star of Palestine’, reported the DailyMirror.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa is due to visit Palestine tomorrow, where he will meet with President Mahmoud Abbas, and will receive the award for showing solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle.

The British Tamil Conservatives have called on the British government to impose travel bans and seize foreign assets on Sri Lankans suspected of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, reported The Island.

Talks between the US and Sri Lanka on importing Iranian crude oil have been unsuccessful, according to a Sri Lankan official.

Petroleum Resources Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said that several rounds of talks were held both in Colombo and in Washington, but no agreement was found and that the US informed Sri Lanka that it cannot import Iranian oil, in line with sanctions imposed on Teheran.

Non-compliance would mean that Sri Lankan banks would be cut off from the US financial system.

The US Embassy in Colombo is launching a new programme to promote greater understanding of social media.

Three churches were attacked on Christmas Eve in the south of the island, with at least one of the attacks involving Buddhist monks, reported the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL).

The organisation reported that  in Angunukolapalassa more than 300 villagers and Buddhists monks gathered outside the church demanding all services be stopped. On the same night unidentified assailants attacked two others churches in Hikkaduwa.