INTERNATIONAL: Hundreds of supporters of the Sri Lanka's main opposition party Samagi Jaana Balawegaya gathered outside the main rail terminal in the commercial capital Colombo Thursday June 30 to demand the resignation of the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The demonstrators accused Rajapaksa of being responsible for the worst economic crisis in living memory and marched towards the official residence.

The South Asian Island of 22 million people is close to running out of fuel and has struggled for months to find enough U.S. dollars to pay for essential imports such as food, cooking gas and medicine. Sri Lanka this week shut schools and stopped providing fuel to all but essential services.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whom critics blame for the financial crisis for having given key posts to relatives and being slow to seek an IMF bailout, has been under prolonged pressure to step down, though he has said he plans to stay on until his term ends in 2024.

"The daily wage earners like self-employed people, labourers, workers, businessmen, the middle class have all been badly affected," opposition leader Sajith Premadasa told demonstrators. "Everybody get ready to throw these Rajapaksa thieves from the country and from government."

Protests, some of them violent, in recent months have forced a number of key ministers to resign, leaving President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe struggling to stabilise the nation.

Two of Rajapaksa's brothers resigned earlier this year as prime minister and finance minister following weeks of street protests.

A proposed constitutional amendment, a draft of which was published on Thursday (June 30), would establish a constitutional council and nine independent commissions to improve governance. The commissions would work to promote human rights, increase audit oversight of government agencies and bolster anti-graft investigations.

The amendment could be presented to parliament in July, Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe said last week. It might undergo further changes before it is eventually passed into law.

Critics, however, say the amendment did not go far enough to tackle the demands of protesters.

^{PHOTO: PROTESTERS SHOUTING ANTI GOVERNMENT SLOGANS, OPPOSITION LEADER ARRVING , ADDRESSING PROTESTERS, MARCHING TOWARDS PRESIDENT'S OFFICIAL RESIDENCE, DEMONSTRATING AT THE POLICE BARRICADES}