The Tamil National Alliance has laughed off President Rajapakse’s claim that he will hold provincial council elections in September 2013.

“We want to hold elections in September 2013,” President Mahinda Rajapaksa told The Hindu in an interview published on Wednesday.

“We are working towards it [the elections] in a systematic manner.”

Over 11% of the schools in the Northern provinces of Sri Lanka remain closed due to the continued occupation of the Sri Lankan military, said teachers in Jaffna, using statistics from the Northern provincial ministry of education, reported TamilNet.

Aid from foreign NGOs and the Tamil diaspora has been systematically blocked from reaching Tamil educational institutions.

Article 19, a media freedom organisation based in the UK, has expressed concern over threats to The Sunday Leader editor’s life by Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse.

"The threat against journalist Frederica Jansz is the latest demonstration of the Sri Lankan government’s systematic attacks against independent and opposition-supporting journalists and media houses.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Sri Lanka has fallen in 2011, with approximately US$ 300 million invested into the country, according to a report by UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development).

Although the Ministry of Economic Development tasked the Board of Investment (BOI) with attracting $1 billion, FDI fell short of this target.

Sri Lanka has decided to amend a decades old media law, resulting in the regulation of all news websites and electronic media.

The government made the announcement a week after it raided and temporarily shut down two anti-government websites.

The amendments to the Press Council Law established in 1973, will mean that websites and electronic media will have to adhere to media codes that are set by the Sri Lankan government.

Sri Lanka has earned a considerable income from United Nations peacekeeping operations in other countries, Army Media Spokesman Brigadier Wanigasekara has said.

According to the Brigadier Wanigasekara, Sri Lanka has earned in excess of 18.4 billion rupees from its ‘peacekeeping’ operations around the world since 2004.

Incidentally, Sri Lanka’s military expenditure rapidly increased before 2009, where 40,000 tamil civilians were killed in the final stages of the war.

In an incredible outburst against The Sunday Leader’s editor, Frederica Jansz, Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse verbally abused her and said she will be killed, after she questioned him after Sri Lanka airlines swapped an aircraft so that a friend of his could fly it to collect a puppy from Switzerland.

During his rant, over two conversation on the telephone, Rajapakse threatened Ms Jansz with legal action if she prints anything regarding this story and said he will put her in jail.

Former chief of the Sri Lankan Army, General Sarath Fonseka has declared that he will lead an uprising to oust the government from power.

“I’m definitely asking people to rise up... and overthrow the government by democratic methods,” he said.

Human rights lawyers have lodged a petition at the Supreme Court over the death of political prisoner Ganesan Nimalaruban.

Working with Mr Nimalaruban’s parents the lawyers are seeking to overturn a court ruling that he must be cremated by authorities near Colombo.