Sri Lanka police officers serving in the Jaffna district have had their leave cancelled following a spate of violent crimes across the peninsula which have left residents disturbed and angry with the police for its failure to protect communities.

Different areas of the district have recently been left reeling by murders, gang violence and shocking cases of sexual violence.

With local protests being targetted mainly on the police's failure to prevent violent crime, Jaffna police have had all leave cancelled until July 18th.

The editor of the New York Times, Michael Slackman condemned the intimidation of journalists by Sri Lankan lawmakers following a NYT report last month into Chinese control over of the Hambantota port. 

Sinhala MPs and politicians have condemned the Tamil UNP state minister, Vijayakala Maheswaran, who reportedly said last week the LTTE was needed in the North-East to prevent the rising violence and anti-social behaviour that is taking place in the region. 

The State Minister of Defence, Ruwan Wijewardene said he abhorred her statement and warned that legal action could be taken. 

After almost a month, the Tamil Guardian website has come back online this morning, following a malware attack on the site.

The website was taken down in early June, after an attack caused the site to crash.

“At this point, our technical team is still working to determine the origin of the attack,” said Tamil Guardian editor-in-chief Abinaya Nathan.  

The Sri Lankan High Commission in London has written to the Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA), objecting to the inclusion of Tamil Eelam in its World Football Cup tournament.

CONIFA is the football federation for all associations outside FIFA and describes itself as a global non-profit organization that supports representatives of international football teams from nations, de-facto nations, regions, minority peoples and sports isolated territories.

On June 3rd 2007, two Tamil Red Cross volunteers who were abducted whilst they were in Colombo for a tsunami relief program were found shot dead.

The two Tamils, 38 year old Sinnarajah Shanmuganathan and 28 year old Karthigesu Chandramohan, were both from Batticaloa.

The Sri Lankan navy will join the US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) navy exercise for the first time later this month – the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise.

“Twenty-six nations, 47 surface ships, five submarines, 18 national land forces, and more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel will participate,” said an official US navy website.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena warned that he may unilaterally block social media access across the island if it were to be ‘misused’ citing “national security” and “ethnic harmony”.

The Daily Mirror quoted Mr Sirisena as stating that he had “summoned a team of experts who work in a global institution in the US that attend to issues pertaining to social media”. He added,

“I discussed with them the influence of the social media has on social and national security, ethnic harmony, integrity of a family and so on because social media has influenced them badly. I also told the US experts that if they could not control what was going on in Sri Lanka,

The Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena told the SLFP's Central Committee that the party's alignment with the UNP was the cause of its election failings at the local government elections. 

All parties had been affected by internal divisions and factions, he was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying. 

"Nobody can single out a party unaffected by internal squabbles," he added. 

Tensions between the ruling coalition partners have increased since the polls delivered a win to the former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

Tamils protesting in Jaffna against the killing of Thoothukodi protesters in Tamil Nadu faced police intimidation as officers and security personnel photographed participants.