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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019

DEFLATEDHOW UBER LOSTITS SWAGGERPAGE 11 | BUSINESS

‘DARK CRYSTAL’THE PUPPET SAGAGETS A PREQUELPAGE 14 | CULTURE

HAWAIIAN PARADISEGO OUT OF YOUR WAYTO VISIT POLIHALE BEACHBACK PAGE | TRAVEL

per capita motorcycle deaths, the coun-try is No. 1.

“I never thought about road deathsuntil this happened to my mother,” saidChularat Chanhom, Ms. Orathai’s adultdaughter. “I had no idea it was such a bigproblem in Thailand.”

The government vowed at a UnitedNations forum in 2015 to halve the num-ber of road traffic deaths by 2020. Withless than one year to go before the dead-line, however, Thailand is a long wayfrom fulfilling that promise, its roadsstill ranking among the world’s 10 mostdangerous, with more than 20,000 pre-ventable fatalities a year.

The country has seen a small dip inroad deaths since 2015, and Thailandhas in place many of the necessary lawsto make its roads safer. But the govern-ment has not addressed the country’svast gap in wealth, which is the core is-sue that not only makes its roads sodeadly, but has also split the countryinto two bitterly divided political camps:Thailand’s haves and have-nots.

Thailand, named the most unequalcountry of the 40 major economies sur-veyed last year by Credit Suisse, haswhat might be the world’s most toxiccombination for traffic safety.

Unlike poorer countries, its roads arewell paved and made for speed, and thecars driven by the rich and its growingmiddle class tend to be new and fast.

The Thai woman was riding on a motor-cycle on her way to work when a pickuptruck sideswiped her on a rural stretchof asphalt in northeastern Thailand. Thetruck’s driver was an off-duty police offi-cer. He was drunk.

Orathai Chanhom, the motorcyclist,was catapulted off her bike and killed al-most instantly in the crash.

The officer who struck her still has hispolice job. His driver’s license was nottaken away. A court declined to sentencehim to prison.

In Thailand, one of the world’s mostunequal societies, even roads have a rig-id hierarchy, with the poor far morelikely to be killed in accidents than thewell-off and well-connected.

And there are many deaths: Thailandhad the world’s second-highest rate ofroad fatalities per capita, surpassedonly by war-afflicted, lawless Libya, ac-cording to a 2015 report from the WorldHealth Organization. When it comes to

But many Thai families can affordonly a single scooter or motorcycle, andhigh-quality helmets are a luxury formany.

In accidents on the country’s crowdedroads, it’s a devastating mismatch whenan air-conditioned S.U.V. collides with atwo-wheeler, and the aftermath of suchaccidents are a common, macabre sight

on Thai thoroughfares: a shredded tire,a mangled frame of steel, a bloody plas-tic flip-flop.

Motorcycle accidents can involvemultiple fatalities. It’s not uncommon tosee a couple of adults — and even a childor two crammed between them — bal-anced on a single bike.THAILAND, PAGE 2

Paramedics treating an injured man after a motorcycle accident in Bangkok in April. Thailand had the world’s second-highest rate of road fatalities per capita in 2015.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Asia’s deadliest roads

A paramedic waiting for an emergency call in Bangkok. Thailand vowed to halve thenumber of road traffic deaths by 2020, but still has 20,000 preventable fatalities a year.

BANGKOK

In Thailand, the casualtiesare mostly motorcyclists or pedestrians who are poor

BY HANNAH BEECH

Venus is hitting the ball, still, after allthese years. Venus, the dutiful Williamsdaughter, who actually followed the 78-page playbook her father wrote even be-fore she was born to make her a tennischampion. Venus, who in following thatplaybook delivered on the dreams of theold man now sitting courtside on a

bench watching her practice in the syr-up-thick West Palm Beach morning.

Serena is doing whatever it is that Se-rena does in addition to her training —attending the royal wedding or dancingin a Beyoncé video or organizing theMet ball. But Venus is here. Venus is loy-al. Richard and Serena Williams will tellyou Venus is the most loyal person in theworld. “There’s your average loyalty,”Serena told me. Then there’s Venus loy-alty, which “for lack of a better word ismind-boggling.”

Earlier that September morning, be-fore Venus’s alarm rang, Richard calledand woke her up. Richard likes to dothis, and Venus lets him. She’s secureand generous that way. Venus’s sched-ule for a normal day is: “I get up, I gopractice, I go to the gym. I go to the of-fice normally. I visit my dad. I get homeat 8 or 9.” If the sun is too hot, Venusavoids doing drills that spray balls allover the practice court. Richard likes to VENUS, PAGE 12

Venus Williams has always had a clarityabout who she is. “I’m tall. I’m black.Everything’s different about me. Just facethe facts,” she told reporters at age 17.MICKALENE THOMAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The pioneer who remadepro sports for womenFROM THE MAGAZINE

Without Venus Williams,there would be no Serena.Has she gotten her due?

BY ELIZABETH WEIL

The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.

The series of economic and financial de-velopments on Friday was a strange, be-wildering, exhausting microcosm ofwhy the global economy is at risk of ameltdown.

It showed the odd interplay at workbetween the Chinese government’s ac-tions in the escalating trade war with theUnited States, the sober-minded globalcentral bankers who have limited powerand an American president whose pub-lic pronouncements often appear drivenby grievance more than strategy.

President Trump arrived in France onSaturday for a meeting of the Group of 7industrialized nations, having set thestage for fireworks and confusion. Inone dizzying day, he had seemed to besearching for whom or what to blame foreconomic troubles, first using Twitter tocall his own Federal Reserve chief an en-emy of the United States and then tourge American companies to stop doingbusiness with China.

And that was just while the marketswere open. Later Friday, he said hewould apply tariffs to all Chinese im-ports and increase those already inplace.

The global economy may yet turn outfine; most economic data in the UnitedStates has been solid. But if a recessionand breakdown in international com-merce happens in the coming year, his-tories of the episode may well spend achapter on the Friday collision of officialactions in the government offices of Bei-jing, in the Grand Tetons in Wyomingand in the Oval Office.

It became clear in real time how therisks of an escalating trade war and thefraying of longstanding financial and po-litical ties could quickly outpace the abil-ity of central banks — the normal firstresponders to economic distress — to doanything about it.

President Trump’s shoot-first ap-proach adds to the risks at a delicate mo-ment, with major economies in Asia andEurope already teetering and policy-makers’ capacity to contain the damagein question.

“The escalation, the unpredictability,the erratic nature of policy develop-ments is central to what is going on, andthese aren’t things you can plug into aneconomic model,” said Julia Coronado,president of MacroPolicy Perspectives,an economic consultancy. “Something isbreaking. It’s very dangerous.”

A single news cycle makes vivid howthese different areas of policy can influ-ence one another in unpredictable ways.

As Friday dawned in the UnitedStates, China announced it would im-ECONOMY, PAGE 4

Chaotic daydisplays riskof a globalmeltdownTHE UPSHOT

Confusion makes it clearhow little central bankerscan do to maintain calm

BY NEIL IRWIN

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL When I first setfoot in the Amazon rain forest, in theAnavilhanas Archipelago, northwest ofthe city of Manaus, I experiencedsomething that can only be describedas awe: an overwhelming sense ofconnection with the universe.

Cheesy, I know. But this is some-thing that we rarely feel — only uponseeing a clear tropical night sky, or theghostly flickering of the northern lightsor even the vastness of a FrenchGothic cathedral.

From the outside, the Amazon is amassive, undistinguished canopy oftrees, but once you’re inside it, it isindeed a “monumental universe,” inthe words of the anthropologist ClaudeLévi-Strauss. It has a strikingly lay-ered structure: The soil lies beneath an

entanglement ofroots, mosses anddecomposingleaves; pale trunksappear and disap-pear as they climbup into the lushfoliage. The tallesttrees can reach upto 200 feet, almostthe height of thetowers of Notre-Dame. And now it is

their turn to burn.The first sign that the Amazon would

not have a good year came this month,when the government sacked the headof the National Institute for SpaceResearch, the physicist RicardoGalvão, who was unpatriotic enough torelease data showing a 278 percentjump in deforestation in July comparedwith the same month the previousyear. President Jair Bolsonaro saidthat he should have been warned aboutsuch evidence, which could cause thecountry great harm internationally.

“This is not a posture from a Brazil-ian, someone who wants to serve hiscountry and is concerned aboutBrazil’s businesses,” Mr. Bolsonarosaid. He suggested that the agencycould be lying to make the governmentlook bad.

By then, however, a number of satel-lite images had emerged showing trulyalarming numbers of fires across theAmazon: dozens of smoldering patchesof scorched earth, clouding the darkgreen landscape.

According to the institute, the num-ber of fires detected in Brazil so farthis year is 84 percent higher than inthe comparable period last year; morethan half of those are in the Amazonregion. More than 1,300 new fires were

A ravagingof Amazoniaacross BrazilVanessa BarbaraContributing Writer

OPINION

A globaltreasure lies atthe mercy ofPresident JairBolsonaro,the smallest,dullest, pettiestof leaders.

BARBARA, PAGE 7

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A podcast with culture writers Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham.

nytimes.com/stillprocessing

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