pass the roti on the left hand side

Indian students in Australia have vowed to fight back against a series of callous attacks they have blamed on racists.

Furious demonstrators have rallied in Sydney and Melbourne, where dozens of assaults have been reported in the past year.

"People got stabbed in their houses, on train stations, on the street and there were petrol bombs thrown on people's cars," said Gautam Gupta, the founder of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia. He accused the authorities of being "too slow" to respond to the violence.

Sikhs wielding knives and a handgun attacked two preachers at a rival Sikh temple in Vienna on Sunday in a brawl that left at least 16 people wounded, the police and witnesses said. A related clash later broke out in northern India.

Hundreds of ethnic Tamil Malaysians, including MPs, gathered at the Batu Caves Hindu temple to protest against the Sri Lankan Government's "war against Tamils" there.

The rally, organised by the World Tamil Relief and several NGOs, condemned the thousands of Tamils lives lost in the war in northern Sri Lanka.

Deputy Federal Territories Minister M Saravanan said the rally was not in support of any militant group but to show concern for the loss of lives of innocent Tamil civilians.

Around 180 people were arrested and four injured in Paris on Monday during an unauthorised protest by Tamils that turned violent, a police spokesman said.

Expatriate Tamils have been demonstrating around the world against the Sri Lankan government's conduct of the war against Tamil Tiger rebels. London has been a focus as many Tamils blame Britain, the former colonial power, for denying them a homeland.

The ongoing Parliament Hill protests and hunger strikes by Tamil Canadians are meant to stir our lawmakers into action against Sri Lanka, whose government is waging a successful military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers. If anything, however, the protests have had the opposite effect: Just as radical Canadian Muslims attract disgust when they raise the flags of Hezbollah or Hamas, so too do Tamils who fly the flag the of the LTTE, a terrorist insurgency that once controlled much of Sri Lanka.

The founder of the British Tamil Association has been convicted of two terrorism charges.

But the jury was discharged after failing to reach a verdict on three other charges against Arunachalam Chrishanthakumar, 52, of south London.

He was found guilty of supplying bomb-making equipment for the Tamil Tigers and receiving documents for the purpose of terrorism.

The Tamil Tigers became a banned organisation in the UK in 2000.

Upon learning there were complaints of people defecating in the World Exchange Plaza's parking garage over the weekend, a spokesman for the Tamil protesters on Wellington St. went on a speaker yesterday and reminded demonstrators to respect local businesses.

It's not known exactly who was defecating in the garage, or if it was a protester, but a plaza employee said it's not common.

"It's not against any rules but it's breaking a moral code," said the employee, who didn't want to be identified.

He also said protesters were sleeping in their cars in the garage.

Tamil protesters raid Oslo embassy

Protesters smashed windows and furniture inside Colombo's embassy in Norway [AFP]

Tamil demonstrators in Norway have broken into the Sri Lankan embassy in Oslo during a protest in the Norwegian capital, smashing windows and furniture.

No one was hurt in protest on Sunday, police said, and Norway later apologised to the Sri Lankan government, vowing better police protection at future protests.

Protesting Sri Lankan Tamils are being blamed for beheading the statue of Jawaharlal Nehru outside India House in London. Indian diplomats were informed of the statue’s desecration when they arrived at the premises of the High Commission in Aldwych this morning. The remains of the statue have been bound in a white sheet and are visible for all to see. When contacted, India’s High Commissioner to UK Shiv Shankar Mukherjee said: “The statue has been damaged and the police are investigating.

Simon Hughes, a Liberal Democrat MP who has been involved in negotiations between the Tamils and police, said last night that one of the men had agreed to suspend his hunger strike in order to travel to the UN in New York with Labour MP Des Browne, the government's special envoy for Sri Lanka.