Extracts from opinion, by Bruce Haigh writing for the Canberra Times, on the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia and New Zealand and the dropping of a case against him:

The intemperate attacks against the Tamil Diaspora that accompanied India’s predictable decision to re-proscribe the LTTE earlier this month reflects more than anything the dismal failure of India’s attempts to shape a political solution to the island’s ongoing and escalating ethnic conflict.

Indian approaches to the Tamil crisis in Sri Lanka have long been driven by the belief that the LTTE and particularly its senior leadership remained the singular obstacles to an equitable political solution to the conflict. To this end the Indian political and military establishment provided unqualified support for Sri Lanka’s military efforts to crush the Tamil struggle.

However, three years after the end of the war and the military destruction of the LTTE, amidst Sri Lanka’s horrifying slaughter of Tamil civilians, the prospects of a political solution to the ongoing ethnic conflict are by all accounts remote.

Australian senator of the Greens party, Lee Rhiannon, called for the expulsion of Sri Lanka's High Commissioner Thisara Samarasinghe.

Accusing him of boasting about how Sri Lanka caught Tamil asylum seekers trying to flee the civil war, Rhiannon stated he was a war criminal.

The homes of Tamil political figures who organised recent and upcoming protests were attacked with crude oil on Tuesday, reports TamilNet.

Two senior defence officials were forced to cut short their training programme in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu after strong protests by political parties in the state.

Air Vice Marshal Jegath Julanga Diaz of the Sri Lankan Air Force and Rear Admiral S Ranasinghe of the Navy left to an undisclosed location during the early hours of Tuesday.

The week of July 16th to the 22nd has been declared as ‘Social Integration Week’ in Sri Lanka. It was launched ceremonially by President Mahinda Rajapakse at Temple Trees on Monday.

An Australian NGO working with Tamil asylum seekers and detainees in Australia, the Australian Refugee Action Coalition, said they expected more Tamil asylum seekers to risk their lives, as the situation in Sri Lanka deteriorated.

Tamils protested against the presence of two Sri Lankan military officials at Gateway Hotel, at the Coonoor hill station in Tamil Nadu on Sunday, reports NDTV.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, young Tamil asylum seekers who made the perilious journey to Christmas Island, recounted their ordeal.

A 17-year-old school boy said he left fearing arrest by the Sri Lankan Navy or police if he was found.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha has criticised the Indian government for allowing two Sri Lankan officers to receive training in the southern state’s Nilgiris district, while Karunanidhi has dropped the demand for an independent Tamil Eelam from a conference, after pressure from the home minister.

In a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Jayalalitha said the people of Tamil Nadu “are frustrated and outraged” by the “callous and adamant attitude” of India in giving training to Sri lankan armed forces personnel.

In an interview with Sami Zeiden of Al Jazeera, Sri Lanka's Justice Minister, Rauf Hakeem, asserted that Sri Lanka was being 'unfairly targetted' by the Human Rights Council, and felt 'victimised' by the European Union.

The Sri Lankan military in Jaffna has evicted more than 279 families from their homes and occupied their land, reports TamilNet. Civil society sources in the north report that military personnel are silently evicting people from their homes in Maathakal, an area that is outside the former ‘High Security Zone’.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, the Sri Lankan Army's chief, Lt. General Jagath Jayasuriya, gave his take on the army's role in the North-East and rejected any criticism of the army camps as "not anybody else's" problem.

Jayasuriya said,

The British High Commissioner, John Rankin, urged the government to investigate disappearances and resolve the "complex" land issues that remain.

In a statement released on Friday, Rankin said,