Sri Lanka's opposition leader R Sampanthan said the demand by the Northern Provincial Council earlier this month to change the official name of an island of the Jaffna peninsula back into Tamil from Sinhala was "a stupid proposal".

Mr Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, said he saw no reason to make Nainathivu (Tamil) the official name, as opposed to the current name Nagadipa (Sinhala), The Island reported.

The TNA-run NPC had recently passed a resolution, demanding the name of the island off Jaffna to be changed back to Tamil, but Mr Sampanthan said,

"There’s no reason to change the name in this country where we all live; I am opposed to this proposal. We should be trying to unite people and not divide them. Nagadipa should remain just as the Nainativu kovil must remain. This is a stupid proposal."

Photograph: Tamil Guardian

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations stressed the importance of demilitarisation in the North, in a meeting with Sri Lanka’s Governor of Northern Province. H. M. G. S. Palihakkara today.

Ms Power tweeted that the two “agreed development, demilitarization in Jaffna cannot wait,” in a meeting during her visit to the North.

Met with Gov Palihakkara in North #SriLanka. Agreed development, demilitarization in Jaffna cannot wait. pic.twitter.com/vFEzFFcBmm — Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) November 22, 2015

Photograph: Uthayan

US Ambassador Samantha Power praised the resilience of Tamil journalists for playing a “critically important role as a check and balance of state power” and urged them to continue their work, during her trip to Jaffna today.

As part of her visit to the North, Ms Power toured the Uthayan office in Jaffna, before speaking to a group of journalists and media workers. Having heard about the repeated attacks the newspaper faced during and after the armed conflict, Ms Power said “I know that things in this area have been incredibly difficult for a very long time.”

“But imagine how much worse it would have been if it were not for this paper and the fact that soldiers and government officials had to think to themselves “maybe they’ll report on it”,” continued the ambassador. “We will never know what this area would have looked like without you all having the courage to come to work every day.”

@AmbassadorPower at @UthayanPrint @USAmbKeshap pic.twitter.com/O9VHEbOgbb — Uthayan Print (@UthayanPrint) November 22, 2015

Earlier in the day, Ms Power and the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Atul Keshap also met with members of the Jaffna Press Club, with Mr Keshap stating “a free press is the guardian of democracy and human rights”.

Photograph: @Uthayashalin

Visiting the office of the Uthayan, which still bears bullet holes left from repeated attacks, Ms Power urged media workers of the North to continue their work in publishing stories that critique the Sri Lankan government.

“Every one of you who has any role in putting this paper out day after day after day is playing a critically important role as a check and balance of state power,” she said. “And if there is to be more change in this country it will be because you keep holding government accountable.”

Photograph: US Embassy Colombo

The United States announced it will fund the restoration of ancient Tamil manuscripts in Jaffna on Sunday.

The announcement was made as part of US Ambassador Samantha Power’s visit to the North, where she told Jaffna Library staff “we plan to partner with you as you seek to complete the task of preserving what you have”.

After a welcome from a traditional Tamil inniyam band, the ambassador met with staff members, signed the library guestbook and viewed some of the 1000-year old palmyrah manuscripts that have survived to this day.

The library lost over 95,000 unique and irreplaceable Tamil palm leaves (ola), manuscripts, parchments, books, magazines and newspapers, after it was set ablaze by Sri Lankan state security forces and state sponsored mobs in 1981.

The ancient manuscripts give the next generation a “window to the past,” said the ambassador, adding she was “proud to announce [the] US grant”.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power in opened the new facility of the Osmania College in Jaffna that was built using the approximately $450,000 funding from the US.

Sri Lanka’s Former navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda acknowledged the existence of underground detention cells in the Trincomalee naval dockyard said TNA parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran on Friday.

Speaking during Sri Lanka’s parliamentary debate on the 2016 budget, Mr Sumanthiran asked why Karannagoda was not being investigated over evidence of secret torture cells in Sri Lanka.

Mr Sumanthiran quoted the navy commander of telling press that the cells had been used to detain people but not torture them, reports Colombo Gazette.

Sri Lanka’s Ministry of External Affairs announced that it had left 8 out of 16 organisations and 157 individuals proscribed because they “espouse separatism.”

In a statement explaining why the full blanket ban on Tamil diaspora organisations had not been lifted, the MEA said in a statement,

The US will pressure the Sri Lankan government and take all measures to ensure that the needs of the Tamil people are met, according to the assurances of US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, in her meeting with Northern Province Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting on Sunday, Mr Wigneswaran said that Ms Power had stated that the US was well aware of the Tamil people’s grievances, saying “by giving the government pressure, we will take all measures to do everything that is necessary for you.”