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,

Citing a "challenge [to] the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India", the Indian government extended its ban on the LTTE for another two years. In a statement, the home ministry added that the LTTE held a strong anti-India stance and pro-LTTE groups 'continued to foster a separatist tendency' among the Indian masses.

In her continuing campaign to expel Sri Lankan Air Force personnel from India, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has attacked both the Indian government for being meek and DMK president M Karunanidhi's duplicity on the issue.

In a statement made on Friday she had said of Delhi:

Sri Lanka’s second International Defence Seminar will be held from August 8-10 in Colombo, Army Commander Brigadier Jagath Jayasuriya announced on Wednesday.

The conference has been themed ‘Towards Lasting Peace and Stability’ and will focus on ‘post-war 5Rs’ – rehabilitation, re-integration, re-construction, resettlement and reconciliation.

Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella has announced the imposition of registration fees for news websites in Sri Lanka.

News websites will now be charged Rs 100,000 ($750) for registering and an annual fee of Rs 50,000 ($ 375).

Rambukwella said the new measures are designed to control ‘filth’ that was being published by some websites.

Extracts from a report by the Washington Post on Friday:

The Jaffna magistrate has banned a demonstration protesting against the military’s appropriation of Tamil residents' lands – even though he has no jurisdiction to do so.

According to the magistrate, the demonstration would threaten national security, create dissension among communities and would be risking the normalisation of armed culture.

Journalists, activists and opposition lawmakers have staged a protest against media suppression and intimidation by the Sri Lankan state.

Dozens of protesters gathered in Colombo on Thursday to condemn the recent police raids of websites critical of the government, the alleged attempted abduction of a journalist and the alleged secret police gathering journalists’’ personal information.

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.

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.