If at all there is any positive impact of the unprecedented uprising and demonstrations, staged spontaneously by the masses of Tamil Nadu and the diaspora, it is the inward awakening of global Tamils to the forces of oppression and to the defiance of the oppressors, whether domestic or international.

The United Nations has warned hundreds of thousands of people, living in the war zone in the north-eastern Sri Lankan region of Vanni, are facing a food crisis.

Sri Lankan government last week unveiled plans to detain a large proportion of the Tamil civilian population of Vanni for at least three years in concentration camps which it calls ‘welfare villages’.

* 36 civilians killed and 76 wounded in latest attack on ‘safety zone’

In one of the biggest hospitals in Sri Lanka's north, many women patients wonder why they survived the fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the military that killed so many of their friends.

Despite the massacres, the Tamils will not submit to Sinhala rule.

Sri Lankan army's gains against Tamil Tigers too dearly bought, some soldiers' families say

Whilst Sri Lanka believes its forces are on the brink of wiping out the LTTE after 30 years of war, the world is not so convinced.

The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) formed an umbrella organisation, the Sri Lankan Tamils Welfare and Liberty Forum, to campaign demanding a political solution to the crisis in Sri Lanka.

Congress functionary Sirkazhi (Cheerkaazhi) Ravichandran, a 47-year-old father of two children, immolated himself on Saturday, February 7, to protest his party's inaction on the Eelam Tamils issue.

Parents of missing Sri Lankan soldiers this week urged the ICRC to approach the LTTE to check whether their sons were in Tiger custody as reports appeared in Colombo media of SLA over running an LTTE detention camp in Visuvamadu area.

16 Sri Lankan troopers have been killed in Ampaarai district in the east in three separate incidents since the beginning of this month, according to LTTE sources.

In fighting that lasted five days, over one thousand Sri Lankan Army (SLA) soldiers were killed and an arms storage was seized by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to sources close to LTTE.

Sea Tigers attacked a convoy of Sri Lankan naval crafts patrolling the north-eastern seas sinking two Arrow boats, according to the LTTE officials.