Polling will follow a largely peaceful and low-key campaign
Sri Lanka’s 17.1 million voters head to the polls again on Thursday to vote in snap parliamentary elections, barely seven weeks after choosing a new president.
More than 8,800 candidates are in the fray in an election marked by a low-key campaign.
Voting begins at 07:00 local time (01:30 GMT) and ends until 16:00 (10.30 GMT). Counting will start in the evening and results are expected on Friday.
Out of 225 seats in the parliament, 196 MPs will be directly elected. The rest would be nominated by political parties based on the percentage of votes they get in what is known as proportional representation.
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Sri Lankans are returning to the polls barely seven weeks after choosing a new president
“Over 8,800 candidates belonging to 49 political parties and 284 independent groups are contesting the elections but only around 1,000 candidates have actively campaigned,” Rohana Hettiarachchi, executive director of poll monitoring group People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections, told the BBC.
High inflation, food and fuel shortages precipitated a political crisis in 2022 which led to the ousting of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His successor Ranil Wickremesinghe managed to negotiate a bailout package worth $3bn with the International Monetary Fund – but many Sri Lankans continue to feel economic hardship.
“We are still stuck with the problems we faced before. We still don’t have financial help even to fulfil our daily needs,” 26-year-old garment factory worker Manjula Devi, who works in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone near Colombo, told the BBC.
The number of people living below the poverty line in Sri Lanka has risen to 25.9% in the past four years. The World Bank expects the economy to grow by only 2.2% in 2024.
“Sri Lanka has still not recovered from the 2022 economic crisis, even with the IMF bailout,” Raisa Wickrematunge, deputy editor of Himal Southasian magazine, told the BBC.
“I am typing this from the Sri Jayawardenapura general hospital, a public hospital which is switching off its lights and fans to try to bring down skyrocketing electricity costs.”
In 2022, the country defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time, forcing it to seek debt restructuring deals.
Observers expect a multi-cornered contest in the general election, which may ultimately dent the chances of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, enacting ambitious reforms.
“Analysts predict he may struggle to get two-thirds and may have to rely on coalitions. This would make his task much more difficult,” says Raisa Wickrematunge.
The election campaign has been largely peaceful with no reports of poll-related deaths or large scale misuse of government resources.
“Violence is negligible compared to previous elections. It will be peaceful elections,” hopes Rohana Hettiarachchie.
They’re all over your TikTok and Instagram – people unboxing the latest extravagant beauty advent calendar.
Influencers excitedly wonder what eyeliner, serum or hand cream will be behind door one, and gush over the beautiful box it has come in.
But are these products, which can cost hundreds of pounds, actually worth the money?
Yes, says TikToker Cissy Jones from Manchester.
We’re just over a week into November and the 27-year-old, who is a social media manager at fashion brand PrettyLittleThing but also makes TikToks on her personal account, has already posted a dozen advent calendar videos. Everything from chocolate, to beauty products and wine, and even a Pets At Home calendar for her dog.
“There’s one – the Harrods 12-day one – where every product in it is something that I would buy,” she says. “So I’m saving money.”
That idea of saving money is something that brands latch on to with their marketing. A calendar may cost £250 but it’s actually “worth £1,000”, they say, if you add up all the individual items.
“But you do have to want the actual products,” says Cissy. “Otherwise, it’s a bit of a waste of money.”
Cissy Jones/TikTok
Cissy Jones says there is massive interest in beauty advent calendars online
Retailers can afford to make such seemingly good offers because there’s a lot of margin built into beauty products, analysts say.
And rather than aiming to make a big profit on them, they view advent calendars as a marketing tool to get you to buy more products afterwards.
“A lot of retailers recognise advent calendars are a great way of getting new products to the consumer and a way to get them to convert,” says Natalie Berg from NBK Retail.
However, Sarah Johnson from Flourish Retail says that while there are many lovely bespoke calendars out there, “a lot [of companies] just use advent calendars to shift stock that may not be popular, rather than having to discount it”.
The size of the items in advent calendars can vary – with some offering full-sized bottles, some smaller versions, and some a mix of the two.
But smaller sizes may be what people want, says Ms Berg, as it’s common to want to try something out before fully committing.
Holly May Arnott
Advent calendars are a great way of trying products she’s seen on social media, says Holly May Arnott, who has started posting unboxing videos on TikTok herself
Holly May Arnott agrees. “They’re a fantastic way to try new and trending products that I might have seen previously on social media,” she says.
The 26-year-old has been buying beauty calendars for several years now. It’s something she and her mum do together.
“It’s like prolonging that Christmas morning thrill,” she says, adding a sense of excitement throughout December.
The most expensive one she’s bought was from Selfridges, which was “such a luxury”.
But she says while beauty calendars “can feel like a bit of an investment, they’re worth it for us”.
With so many products out there, Cissy Jones’s advice is to look for a brand you like and to look for value for money, in terms of the total cost of all the items individually versus the price of the calendar.
However, even if a product may seem like good value for money, for some, spending more than £200 on an advent calendar is simply a luxury they cannot afford.
Nihal
Nihal doesn’t think it is worth paying hundreds of pounds for a calendar unless you’re going to use every product in it
As a result, many scam websites have sprung up, trying to take advantage of people looking for a good deal on an expensive item.
Emma Jones and Nihal, who did not want us to use her last name, got in touch with the BBC after falling for fake adverts claiming to sell the Space NK £250 advent calendar for £28.99. Both women were attracted by the apparent discount, and say they would not pay full price.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable spending that amount of money, mainly because I wouldn’t have that amount of spare cash,” says Emma.
“They can be very expensive – I’m not the type that would pay full price,” Nihal says.
“I don’t think it’s worth it. If you’re going to use every single product then maybe yes. But sometimes in these prepacked stuff, you’ll probably only use two or three of these products.”
But part of the reason beauty advent calendars are so popular is because shoppers still want to treat themselves, says Natalie Berg.
And many are willing to pay full price – and beyond.
Sephora/Harrods
Many beauty calendars are already sold out, such as these from Sephora and Harrods
The likes of Space NK, Harrods and Sephora have all sold out of their main calendars already.
The Harrods beauty calendar was priced at £250 but claimed to include items worth £1,600, while Sephora’s £199 calendar said it included items worth £1,000.
But you can find people selling them on eBay, asking for as much as £550 for the Harrods one and £399 for the Sephora one.
“It goes back to supply and demand – dynamic pricing,” says Sarah Johnson.
It might make sense to buy it even at an overinflated price, she says, if the retailer is sold out and you can’t get it anywhere else, especially if you perceive it as still making a saving on the total value of all the items.
This begs the question though of why firms don’t just make more.
Ms Johnson points out that it’s a seasonal product and they don’t want to over-order and be left with surplus stock that they would then have to discount.
Space NK told the BBC that it produced 30% more stock this year than last year but due to “unprecedented” demand still sold out within two and a half weeks. It plans to increase production next year.
Despite the expensive nature of beauty calendars, Ms Johnson says there is a “value perception” there.
“People could buy it to break it out and give [individual items] as gifts. There’s an element of people treating themselves and also being quite savvy and saving themselves money in the long run.”
With more and more of these calendars on sale now, there was a thought a few years ago that we might have reached “peak” advent calendar.
But Cissy Jones disagrees – and thinks the opposite is the case.
“They always sell out every year, so I feel like there’s room for more.”
In a small corner of rural Taiwan, set amongst other dye houses and small factories, the start-up Alchemie Technology is in the final phase of rolling out a project it claims will upend the global apparel industry and slash its carbon footprint.
The UK-based start-up has targeted one of the dirtiest parts of the apparel industry – dyeing fabric – with the world’s first digital dyeing process.
“Traditionally in dyeing fabric, you’re steeping the fabric in water at 135 degrees celsius for up to four hours or so – gallons and tons of water. For example, to dye one ton of polyester, you’re generating 30 tons of toxic wastewater,” Alchemie founder Dr Alan Hudd tells me.
“That is the same process that was developed 175 years ago in the northwest of England, in the Lancashire cotton mills and the Yorkshire cotton mills, and we exported it,” he points out, first to the US and then onto the factories in Asia.
Dye houses use a lot of heat and water
The apparel industry uses an estimated five trillion litres of water each year to simply dye fabric, according to the World Resources Institute, a US-based non-profit research centre.
The industry is, in turn, responsible for 20% of the world’s industrial water pollution, while also using up vital resources like groundwater in some countries. It also releases a massive carbon footprint from start to finish – or around 10% of annual global emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Alchemie says its technology can help solve that problem.
Called Endeavour, its machine can compress fabric dyeing, drying, and fixing into a dramatically shorter and water-saving process.
Endeavour uses the same principle as inkjet printing to rapidly and precisely fire dye onto and through the fabric, according to the company. The machine’s 2,800 dispensers fire roughly 1.2 billion droplets per linear meter of fabric.
“What we’re effectively doing is registering and placing a drop, a very small drop precisely and accurately onto the fabric. And we can switch these drops on and off, just like a light switch,” says Dr Hudd.
Alchemie claims big savings through the process: reducing water consumption by 95%, energy consumption up to 85%, and working three to five times faster than traditional processes.
Developed initially in Cambridge, the company is now in Taiwan to see how Endeavour works in a real-world environment.
“The UK, they’re really strong in R&D projects, they’re really strong in inventing new things, but certainly if you want to move to commercialisation you need to go to the real factories,” says Ryan Chen, the new chief of operations at Alchemie, who has a background in textile manufacturing in Taiwan.
Alchemie has developed a machine uses a printing process to fix colours
Alchemie is not the only company attempting a nearly waterless dye process.
There’s the China-based textile company NTX, which has developed a heatless dye process that can cut down water use by 90% and dye by 40%, according to their website, and the Swedish start-up Imogo, which also uses a “digital spray application” with similar environmental benefits.
NTX and Imogo did not reply to the BBC’s interview request.
Kirsi Niinimäki, a professor in design who researches the future of textiles at Finland’s Aalto University, says the solutions offered by these companies look “quite promising” – although she adds that she would like to see more specific information about issues like the fixing process and long-term studies on fabric durability.
But even though it’s early days, Ms Niinimäki says companies like Alchemie could bring real changes to the industry.
“All these kinds of new technologies, I think that they are improvements. If you’re able to use less water, for example, that of course means less energy, and perhaps even less chemicals – so that of course is a huge improvement.”
Alchemie is in the process of scaling up its operations
Back in Taiwan, there are still some kinks to be ironed out – like how to run the Endeavour machine in a hotter and more humid climate than the UK.
Alchemie service manager, Matthew Avis, who helped rebuild Endeavour in its new factory location, discovered that the machine needs to operate in an air-conditioned environment – an important lesson given how much apparel manufacturing happens in southern Asia.
The company also has some big goals for 2025. After its test run with polyester in Taiwan, Alchemie is heading next to South Asia and Portugal to test their machines and also try it out on cotton.
They will also have to figure out how to scale up Endeavour.
Big fashion companies like Inditex, the owner of Zara, work with thousands of factories. Its suppliers would need hundreds of Endeavours working together to meet its demand for fabric dyeing.
And that’s just one company – there will be many, many more in need.
From 21 October until 1 November, delegates are meeting in Cali, Colombia to take stock of national pledges to protect nature, amid concerns countries are back-sliding on their promises.
Recent analysis suggests, external most countries are set to miss the deadline to submit new national action plans for preserving nature.
Key issues include the scale of ambition in meeting specific targets, finance for biodiversity projects in poorer countries and making sure profits from genetic resources are shared fairly.
Colombian environment minister, Susana Muhamad, who is overseeing the meeting, has set the theme, ‘Peace with Nature’, a call to rethink our relationship with the natural world.
Several presidents are expected to attend, including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Mexico’s incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Head coach Shaun Wane says he “just glad” Herbie Farnworth is English after the Dolphins centre inspired his country to a 2-0 Test series win over Samoa.
Farnworth registered two tries and laid on another for Jack Welsby at Headingley on Saturday, having also starred and scored in the first encounter between the sides at Wigan last Sunday.
“He’s been outstanding in both games,” said Wane.
“He has been the standout player in the series and he’s a really good person and professional. He is a credit to Dolphins and NRL I am just glad he is English.
“He’s trained well. He had a bit of a personal problem this week and missed a session. To come back and perform like that, he’s a credit and is very easy to coach.”
Farnworth covered more metres – 204 – than any England player last Sunday and his exceptional footwork and ability to offload under pressure came to the fore again in Leeds.
The 24-year-old skipped away from two would-be tacklers and held off the dive of Samoa captain Jarome Luai to register his first try of the afternoon.
And his effort early in the second half, from another darting and powerful run. effectively put the game beyond the Pacific Islanders.
“Farnworth really dominated the game again,” said Samoa head coach Ben Gardiner.
“When he carries the ball, sometimes he goes to the line and sometimes he steps away so he is hard to reach and he has a brilliant offload as well and you are not sure if he is going to the outside or inside.
“Normally you have to commit three or four players to a tackle to deal with him, which means your defensive line is all over the shop. He is a very, very good player, who has played brilliantly over two weeks.”
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