Sri Lanka's prime minister D.M. Jayaratne accused western countries of trying to breach the peace on the island.

"Western countries are attempting to divide the peace achieved by Sri Lanka," he told the Cuban foreign minister, reports the state's news cooperation, SLBC.

The Chinese President Xi Jinping is to make an official visit to India, as well as the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan, the country's foreign ministry said Tuesday.

The trip will commence in Tajikistan, where he will be attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security coalition including Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, later this week.

The Sri Lankan government announced that it has banned the import of potatoes, in a bid to protect local farmers from going out of business this week.

The move comes after Sri Lanka announced that it would increase import taxes on both potatoes and onions last month, in a bid to increase vegetable prices.

Traders had complained that the falling prices of vegetables had left many of them unable to make a profit. Sameera Gurusingha, a potato grower from the South told the Sunday Times,

“We mortgage our properties to buy the components that we need for potato cultivation but we don’t get enough profits to pay the mortgage and regain our belongings. We have to use the income to begin the next cultivation.”

The government has made efforts to try and protect the Southern farmers, purchasing potatoes through state-owned Lanka Sathosa retail network as well as declaring a guaranteed price of Rs. 80 per kilo in March this year.

The Sri Lankan government is trying to change the ethnic demographics of the Tamil North-East said the leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF).

Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, in an interview with the Sunday Leader, accused the government of using land appropriation, militarisation and Sinhala colonisation to change the ethnic demographics of the region.

“They are building towns within their military bases. Over time, when they take the military boundaries away there will be an entire Sinhala colonised village within that area,” he said.

Germany’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka Dr. Jurgen Morhard met with the Sri Lankan Army’s Commander of the Security Forces-Jaffna at their headquarters in Palali, reports Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence.

A Tamil student was found dead in Thalavaakkalai, near Nuwara Eliya, in the Central Province on Sunday, Ada Derana reported.

Yoganathan Sivatharshan, who disappeared from his house in Mattukalai on Friday, was found near the Melkothmalai reservoir.

People from his town protested and blockaded a road in Thalavaakalai, saying they suspected Sivatharshan’s death to be murder and charged that local police took insufficient action when he was reported missing.

The Northern Province Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran accused the Sri Lankan military of spying on northern Tamil civilians and even collecting data on their body language.

Speaking at the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi convention, Wigneswaran said that the military was using Israeli technology to collect all types of data on civilians in the North.

Several Sri Lankan government officials have repeatedly contradicted themselves on the status of the implementation of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), said the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA).

In an infographic released on Tuesday, the Colombo-based organisation highlighted claims made by senior government officials, illustrating the extent to which contradictory statements have been publicly made.

In 2013 government minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said that 99% of the LLRC Action Plan had been implemented, yet a year later the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated only 30% had been.

Sri Lankan government Minister Wimal Weerawansa said Western powers may use Facebook as part of an attempt to destabilise the country at an election rally earlier this week.

Colombo Gazette reports the National Freedom Front leader and government minister said Western diplomats were working to split the Sinhalese vote against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, encouraging UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake and even the monk Venerable Maduluwawe Sobhitha thero to stand against him.