- Wildlife populations plunge 73% since 1970: WWF
- 'Sleeper agent' bots on X fuel US election misinformation, study says
- Death toll rises to 109 after Haiti gang attack, official says
- Tigers beat Guardians and on brink of advancing in MLB playoffs
- Argentina MPs back Milei's veto of university funding
- Man City sink Barca in Women's Champions League as Bayern outgun Arsenal
- Greek international Baldock, 31, found dead in pool: state agency
- Florida seaside haven a ghost town as hurricane nears
- Pharrell Williams to co-chair Met Gala exploring Black dandyism
- Wall Street indices hit fresh records as Chinese shares tumble
- Taiwan's president to deliver key speech for National Day
- Sea row on the menu as ASEAN leaders meet China's Li
- Injured Kane won't start England's Nations League clash with Greece
- Discord seen as online home for renegades
- US forecasts severe solar storm starting Thursday
- Mozambique starts tallying votes in tense election
- Zelensky moves to court European leaders in drive for military aid
- Ratan Tata: Indian mogul who built a global powerhouse
- Rodgers rejects 'false' suggestions of role in Saleh dismissal
- One dead as storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, France
- Indian business titan Ratan Tata dead at 86
- Lebanon facing 'catastrophic' situation as 600,000 displaced: UN
- US warns Israel not to repeat Gaza destruction in Lebanon
- Musk's X returns in Brazil after 40-day showdown with judge
- Call her savvy? Harris unleashes unconventional media blitz
- Lucian Freud 'masterpiece' fetches £13.9 million at London sale
- SoFi Stadium to hold next two CONCACAF Nations League finals
- McIlroy and DeChambeau set for PGA-LIV 'Showdown' in Vegas
- Fed minutes highlight divisions over rate cut decision
- Steve McQueen debuts new WWII film at London festival
- Run blitz edges India and South Africa closer to World Cup semi-finals
- Zelensky to court European leaders in drive for military aid
- Israel captain says 'difficult' to focus on football in time of war
- Macron to host Ukraine's Zelensky after meeting Ukrainian troops
- Root says 'many more to get' after England Test runs landmark
- India pile up World Cup high to rout Sri Lanka
- One year later, Israeli hostage family learns of loss
- Texans receiver Collins, Pats' safety Peppers out for NFL clash
- Biden-Netanyahu talk as Hezbollah, Israeli forces clash
- Musk's X available again in Brazil after 40-day ban
- Reddy stars as India crush Bangladesh to clinch T20 series
- Nobel winners hope protein work will spur 'incredible' breakthroughs
- What are proteins again? Nobel-winning chemistry explained
- Arch rivals Ghana, Nigeria drawn together in CHAN qualifying
- AI steps into science limelight with Nobel wins
- Trump lauds India's Modi as 'total killer'
- Wall Street, Europe rise as Chinese shares tumble
- Hunkering down for Hurricane Milton at Disney -- but first, a few rides
- Reddy, Rinku power India to 221-9 in second Bangladesh T20
- Overshooting 1.5C risks 'irreversible' climate impact: study
Sri Lankans stand, sweat and seethe as economy grinds to a halt
As Sri Lankans faint in day-long queues for fuel and swelter through stifling evening blackouts by candlelight, anger is mounting over the worst economic crisis in living memory.
A critical lack of foreign currency has left the island nation unable to pay for vital imports, leading to dire shortages in everything from life-saving medicines to cement.
Long lines for fuel that start forming before dawn are forums for public grievances, where neighbours complain bitterly about government mismanagement and fret over how to feed their families as food prices skyrocket.
"I've been standing here for the past five hours," Sagayarani, a housewife, told AFP in Colombo while waiting for her share of kerosene, used to fire the cooking stoves of the capital's poorer households.
She said she had seen three people faint already and was herself supposed to be in hospital for treatment, but with her husband and son at work she had no choice but to wait under the blistering morning sun.
"I haven't eaten anything, I'm feeling very dizzy and it's very hot, but what can we do? It's a lot of hardship," she said, declining to give her surname.
Trucks at the port are unable to cart food and building materials to other urban centres, or bring back tea from plantations dotted around Sri Lanka's verdant inland hills.
Buses that normally transport day labourers across the capital sit idle, some hospitals have suspended routine surgeries, and student exams were postponed this month because schools ran out of paper.
"I've been living in Colombo for 60 years and I've never seen anything like this," Vadivu, a domestic worker, told AFP.
"There's nothing to eat, there's nothing to drink," she added. "The politicians are living in luxury and we are begging on the streets."
- Expecting worse -
Many among Sri Lanka's 22 million people are no strangers to privation: throughout the global oil crisis of the 1970s, authorities issued ration books for essentials such as sugar.
But the government concedes the present economic calamity is the worst since the South Asian nation's independence in 1948, and a popular local quip now is that the rationing system at least offered some certainty that goods would be available.
A series of misfortunes have pummelled the country -- which emerged from decades of civil war only in 2009 -- in recent years.
Farmers were hit by a crippling drought in 2016 and the Easter Sunday Islamist bombings three years later, which killed at least 279 people, led to a wave of cancellations from foreign travellers.
The coronavirus pandemic then decimated a tourism sector already reeling from the attacks and dried up the flow of remittances from Sri Lankans abroad.
Both are critical sources of foreign cash needed to pay for imports and service the nation's ballooning $51 billion foreign debt.
But a far bigger factor was government "mismanagement", said Murtaza Jafferjee, chairman of the Colombo-based Advocata Institute think tank.
He blamed years of chronic budget deficits, ill-advised tax cuts just before the pandemic that sent government revenue into freefall, and subsidies on electricity and other utilities that disproportionately benefited wealthier Sri Lankans.
The government has also frittered away public money on white-elephant projects, including a lotus-shaped skyscraper that dominates the Colombo skyline, with a revolving restaurant that now sits dormant.
Poor policy decisions have compounded the problems. Last year officials declared Sri Lanka would become the world's first completely organic farming nation and overnight banned imported fertiliser, in an apparent effort to slow down foreign currency outflows.
Farmers responded by leaving their fields empty, driving up food prices, and months later the policy was abruptly dropped.
Sri Lanka is now seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, but negotiations could stretch until the end of the year, and people are bracing for even leaner times ahead.
"I am expecting it to get a lot worse," Jafferjee said.
"Unfortunately, they are unable to contain it, because the people who created the crisis are still in charge of economic management."
- 'Pushed to the brink' -
By night, as the orange hue of street lights illuminates Colombo's wealthier neighbourhoods, large pockets of the city are in near darkness.
Rolling power cuts that stretch for hours each day leave restaurants and corner stores trying to operate under dim candlelight. Other business owners give up and draw down their metal shutters for the evening.
Resentment is palpable and frustrations have occasionally boiled over. A motorcyclist was stabbed to death outside a petrol station last week after a dispute sparked by accusations of queue-cutting.
But most indignation is directed upwards to the administration of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a member of a ruling family once beloved by much of the country's Sinhalese majority for bringing the ethnic civil war against the Tamil Tigers to a brutal end.
Support for the Rajapaksa clan has since gone into a tailspin, with an angry crowd this month attempting to storm the president's office.
Other demonstrations have for now been more subdued, organised through social media and taking the form of silent candlelight vigils during blacked-out nights.
"We've been pushed to the brink," said Mohammed Afker, an engineering student standing alongside thousands of others at a rally staged by a leftist opposition coalition.
The 20-year-old told AFP that day-to-day struggles had left him little time even to contemplate what he knew were poor prospects for finding work after he graduated.
"We're not even able to get essential items... We can't even make tea at home," he said.
"Our futures have become a question mark. We are here protesting because things need to change."
B.Finley--AMWN