The Sydney Morning Herald examines why hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers are risking their lives and fleeing Sri Lanka.

See here for full report, extracts reproduced below:

The body of a middle-aged man was found washed up on Mathakal beach in Jaffna, reports Uthayan.

The body, believed to be that of man aged between 50-55 and wearing a blue saram, was found by local residents on Friday morning.

It was taken away by Sri Lankan police officers for further investigation.

Locals believe it is that of an Indian fisherman.

Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the island’s main Muslim party said it will be contesting independently at the eastern provincial councils.

The announcement comes as a U-turn, only a few days after the SLMC had declared it would be running under the UPFA banner - the ruling coalition.

Sri Lanka's Central Bank has invested reserve money into Greek bonds this year, despite a US$ 6.6 million loss made on Greek bonds last year.

According to the Central Bank, the loss is offset by higher returns from other investments.

Speaking in parliament, the senior minister for International Monetary Cooperation, Sarath Amunugama, said,

Tamil diaspora organisations from Australia, the US and Europe, have submitted a proposal to the Australian government's expert panel on asylum seekers, to work collaboratively to tackle the abuse and exploitation of Tamil asylum seekers.

The proposal, led by Tamils Against Genocide, submitted in partnership with PEARL (People for Equality and Relief in Lanka), Tamil Youth Organisation - Australia (TYO-Australia), and Voice of Tamils, Australia.

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.

According to the Canberra Times, Australian Federal Police dismissed the charges of war crimes against him 'more than four months ago'.