While world powers look apparently condemning Colombo for its culture of impunity allowing armed forces and other elements to commit human rights violations, some among the very powers are engaged covertly in ensuring international impunity to Colombo's war crimes by dodging discussion on Sri Lanka in the apex international security system.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) welcomed the appointment of Des Browne as Special Envoy to Sri Lanka by the British Prime Minister on Thursday, February 12.

Sri Lanka reacted with fury over Britain’s appointment of a special envoy to the country, labelling the appointment as ‘tantamount to an intrusion into Sri Lanka's internal affairs’ and warning of ‘major repercussions’ for relations with Britain.

After not taking up the violence in Sri Lanka in Security Council briefings and avoiding calls for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka, the United Nations on called for a halt to ‘indiscriminate fighting’.

The United States Treasury imposed sanctions on a Tamil foundation in Maryland, accusing it of being part of a support network for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

India has changed its stand on Sri Lanka, no longer insisting that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) lay down arms as a pre-condition for negotiations with the Sri Lankan government for a political settlement.

The Congress led UPA government came under severe criticism from inside and outside of the Parliament, for its continued support for Sri Lanka’s war and for being indifferent to suffering of Tamils in the neighbouring island.

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’.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.