this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. on the surface, it seems calm has returned to sri lanka. this seaside expanse in colombo that was the site for months—long protest is now bustling with locals and tourists enjoying a day out. long queues have gone, food and medicine shortages have eased, and the government is making tough choices to get the economy back on track. but the real recovery

in the lives of average sri lankans is still a long way off. as i travelled across the island nation from the coastal fishing towns to vibrant tourist hubs and central farmlands, i saw how the harsh economic realities have forced sri lankans to make tough choices. these are their stories. you like going to the sea?

yes, i like this. first the shortages and then a cut in the government subsidy has meant fuel is three times more expensive than last year, raising the risks for fishermen. there's no guarantee they can cover expenses on every fishing trip.

more than 250km south on the island's coast in arugam bay, the tide is turning for some. tourism is riding the first waves of recovery. in this town on the eastern coast of sri lanka, the peak of the economic crisis coincided with their main tourist season, hitting local businesses hard, and this surfing destination is still picking up the pieces. i started surf school a long time ago, so therefore -

i had some savings. so i put my whole savings to... i had a dream that i. want to set up a cafe. so i spent about 20,000 - and i still haven't recovered. go down and then lean back. i work as a surfing - instructor and i own a surf school and a surf shop| and a small homestay. i was born here and live here. this is my hometown. 2019, the lonely planet actually put the site, i the picture, as a cover picture, the elephant. rock picture. so they say, i think - in 2019, the best travel destiny was sri lanka. i remember that's been, you know, highlights - in social media. so therefore a lot of- the people were involved in the tourism, and the one who have a small house, i so they invest their money, the money they make - from the fishing and i farming, to, you know, to enrol in the tourism. they knew that tourism is pumping up - so i put all the money for that cafe in 2019. i

but then i didn't expect that, in 2019, you're going - to have a bomb blast and two years of pandemic and then, i again, economic crisis. so the problem that if we have one year this big issue, - then we wouldn't be worried about it. - we can recover. but we get one year— after the other year, you know? so then we... of course, we all have - to struggle and we all have to survive at the end of the day - so all the people that. i know, so far they have to find newjobs. all this has to be up... sri lanka still hasn't fully recovered yet. | of course, now we have petrol, you know, country is slowly upl and running, which is... i'm very proud. and we see a little - amount of tourists here. but still i'm thinking, i due to the price change, we cannot afford to buy things, you know? - it's still struggling a lot. of course we have to put price up for our surf lessons - and for the accommodation,

but still we pay quite a lot . of money for the electricity bill and, you know, - for other basic needs. for one thing, foreign tourists are back, giving a boost to sri lanka's tourist trade, which is one of its biggest foreign currency earners. this has made some of the bigger players more optimistic about navigating the patchy recovery. the recovery so far is quite magical for us. we sri lankans didn't expect the recovery to be this fast. 12 months ago, we were not sure whether this country will exist. i'm chairman ofjetwing symphony plc and been involved in the tourism industry since 1987. so it's been a long time. the most difficult period in running a business i believe is over.

we simply weren't sure by mid of 2022 whether we will survive by now. the most important thing for us is to see the return of the tourists, the return on the airlines. being an island, if we don't see airlines coming into the country, forget it. so the emirates, the qatars, the singapore airlines, air india, allthese big carriers are coming back and they're increasing their frequencies to the country, along with our national carrier, srilankan. crowded beaches, busy hotels are promising signs, but the government measures aimed at stabilising sri lanka's economy are also hindering growth for businesses. i can't see a lot of new development happening, construction happening till the cost of borrowing comes down. it went up to 32%. now it's come down to about 22% and we expect the cost of borrowing to come down further.

until that happens, i can't see any major borrowing happening from not only the leisure sector but other sectors as well, because it's impossible to pay. that's why we are hoping that the interest rates will come to at least single digit towards the end of the year, early next year, and then we are comfortable again. if we in the private sector wait till politically everything is stable, i don't think it'll ever happen. i can't see sri lanka being politically perfectly stable ever. so are we going to give in to that pressure and stop developing our country? crowd chants. the country's stability was shaken last year. when cash and food starved, sri lanka ran out of basics.

the economic hardships brought back long—simmering anger towards the government, and allegations of corruption. enraged citizens took to the streets demanding accountability and a regime change. aragalaya, meaning struggle in sinhala, became synonymous with the people's movement. months later, protesters stormed the government power centres that expelled sri lanka's once—popular and powerful rajapaksa family. crowd chants.

soon after president gota baya fled and resigned, the then prime minister, ranil wickremesinghe, was sworn in as the new president. a few weeks later, the former president returned to the country. he now lives in a government bungalow, and many members of his cabinet are back at the parliament.

in the recent months, the scale of anti—government protests has come down. but the public discontent is still palpable. what this government has done is that the protests have been met by repression, so that repression has also silenced certain communities. there is fear in terms of what it may entail by protesting. there are continuous arrests, there's surveillance, there are people who are called

in for questioning. so the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to protest is under immense threat in sri lanka. we've been litigating in the public interest for the last 25 years. just in the last year, the new faces that come to court to challenge has been quite remarkable. some of the protesters have been arrested under a controversial law aimed at preventing terrorism. the government is now going further, proposing a new anti—terrorism act, or ata, as it's commonly referred to, which it says is needed to maintain stability. the ata, the problematic things are that it still provides broad powers to the police, to the executive arm, to shut down dissent. and it also has a provision that would have restrictions on media reporting. so there are extremely problematic, very broad powers that are given

to the executive arm. we met sri lanka's foreign minister and questioned him about whether the government is clamping down on the public�*s right to free speech and assembly. is the government cracking down on protests? if you have gone around the country, you can see everybody every day protesting. so there is no problem with that. but the moment the peaceful protest ceased to be peaceful, take the law into their own hands, law enforcement officers decide on that particular period of time. here is the threshold — they are breaking...breaching that threshold, violating the law. anything goes beyond can be dangerous to the public health and the public security and public order in their assembly. has the threshold of what complies as a peaceful protest come down for the government? a threshold in the sense if you can see the last year what happens. initially, they stormed the presidential palace. then they stormed

the president's office. they killed one of our colleagues in the parliament, just on the street. so what is the threshold you are talking about? a huge difference between what was taking place one year ago, i understand that. 13 hours of power cut. five days of queue for your fuel. two months of queue for your gas. skyrocketing price of prices. no fertiliser, no medicine. but then we have brought that in and now you need to have a little bit of breathing space, tourists to come, foreign currencies to come, investors to come. so if you're violating that with a very narrow political sense, i don't think that's in national interest. that's in their own self—interest. you are coming up with a new anti—terror law. what is the status of the reformed, the amended version coming in? there are a lot of concerns, and rightfully so. i myself expressed certain concerns on that. the international community express.

0ur civil society, like bar association, express. but we have taken all this into consideration and trying to accommodate all those concerns, drawing the right balance between the national security and the freedom of expression, and try to get in line with international standard. there were certain allegations raised against the previous government, headed and led by gotabaya rajapaksa and his family, on corruption. has there been any set of investigations that the government, this new government, has started on those allegations? i think they should do investigations. that power is vested with the attorney general, with the bribery commission, with the police. they must be given an independent task to go ahead and do it. it's a matter based on the evidence before them, for them to do it. merely because of somebody shouting, "go and investigate. put the man inside. "put the man outside," we cannot do that in a democracy. i mean, people can say anything, but if there is evidence, sound evidence, it is the responsibility of

those people who are litigating or coming out with those allegations to provide those information which will be sufficient to start an investigation. to help repair the economy, sri lanka secured a crucial $3 billion loan from the international monetary fund. in exchange, the government promised to renegotiate loan terms with its creditors and reduce expenses. the government has cut its budget on health and education. subsidies on fuel, power, and cooking gas have been slashed, making them expensive, and taxes have been steeply raised. they chant. the nation's workforce is anxious. the government's plan to raise funds by privatising state—run companies such as insurance, airlines, and telecom has fuelled fears ofjob losses. trade unions are back on the streets protesting,

under close vigil this time. as the working class i and the working people of the country, what we say is, do not put the burden of this . economic crisis and the imf conditions on the working . class, because the working class is already penalised i through this recession. in spite of the stability the government is trying to portray on a surface level, on the ground, workers, normal people, ordinary people are suffering. so we don't see any usefulness of the programme that is being carried out by the government. in my opinion, the good government systems... | the government says a reversal in reforms is not possible. we believe, as a government, | we are emerging from a crisis, so we need a reasonable timeframe to let - the market stabilise. so all removal of subsidies on fuel and the electricity. tariffs are being reflected -

on the increase of the welfare benefits which are being extended to the poor. and the public. so, yes, we have increased taxes, we have removed i subsidies from people - who do not require subsidies, but, at the same time, . people who should receive subsidies are being looked after by the government. for some, the crisis is still not over. nearly a third of sri lanka's workforce is employed in agriculture, holding a key to the nation's food security. but most are small—scale farmers, leaving them vulnerable even to minor disruptions. 90% of sri lanka's crops depend on imported chemical

fertilisers, and a sudden ban on them two years ago led to massive food shortages. is this rice from your own field? sri lanka, once self—sufficient in food, now had to import its staple — rice. even after the ban was reversed, farmers can't afford to pay for fertilisers.

in the last three years, poverty has doubled in sri lanka, which was once the fastest growing middle income economy. hundreds of thousands left the country last year in what was sri lanka's highest—ever migration, the brain drain adding to an already patchy economic recovery. across towns and villages, people are trying to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, for now, one of shrunken incomes, compromises and diminished expectations. i hope we will have a great . economy again and everyone

should have a good life. that we don't expect anyone i to come and give us donations, so we could be all independent. there is unhappiness among the people, that's for sure. the extreme change they wanted didn't happen. that's correct. but there will be an election coming up soon, and each citizen of this country will have a vote. right? then there is an opportunity for them to change. i mean, untilthen, we must focus on the economy, get the economy right. hello.

after saturday's weather, i'll tell you straight away that the outlook is looking significantly better for many parts of the uk over the coming days. even sunday will bring a delightful start to the day, with some sunshine. now, storm antoni swept across southern parts of the uk, but affected mostly the southwest in terms of the severe gales. it's still clipping early in the morning, east anglia and the south—east. so more of a breeze here, perhaps a few showers through the early hours and maybe through the morning, into the afternoon, but for the vast majority of us, it's a quiet start to the day. these are the temperatures around 8:00 in the morning, a little fresh out there, ten in the lowlands of scotland, 12 or 13 in the south. so through the morning and the afternoon, a bit of a breeze there on that lincolnshire coastline and into the south—east and east anglia. showers will develop through the course of the morning, into the afternoon. but many of us should miss the showers and, actually, compared to what we've had, it's not going to be bad at all.

temperatures still a little low, around 16—18 degrees, maybe 20 or 21 in the south—east. but the good news is that sunday evening is looking fine and it should be a calm end to the weekend. how about monday? well, high pressure is trying to push in that weather. it's trying to settle down. but this little area of low pressure is also sneaking in at the same time. now, this isn't gale—force winds, but it is a fair amount of cloud and perhaps some rain reaching south—western parts of the country. i don't think it's going to be particularly heavy. and actually, for many of us, monday's looking absolutely fine across scotland, all through northern england and into central parts of britain as well. sunny spells and just a few showers. now, let's take a look at that jet stream, because it's all about the jet stream, isn't it? it's sort of meandering across the atlantic, pushing the weather systems. but look what happens through the middle to end of the week. it sort of diverts to the north and it opens up the doors to warmer air.

a little more settled weather coming in from the south. now, we're not expecting anything particularly extreme in terms of the temperatures, but they are going to rise, perhaps mid—or—high 20s. doesn't always mean it'll be sunny, but at least better compared to what we've had. bye— bye.

live from london, this is bbc news. decision time for niger as a deadline given by west african leaders for the military to reinstate the country's ousted president is due to expire later today. in the uk, people who are wronglyjailed will no longer have their living costs taken out of their compensation payments. more than 50 people arrested in pakistan for protesting against ex—prime minister imran khan's three—year prison sentence for corruption. president volodymyr zelensky says a russian guided air bomb has hit a blood transfusion centre in north—eastern ukraine. and this weekend marks six months since earthquakes hit turkey and syria. we hear from the family of a baby born under rubble of her home.