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Post #8 (11-25-19)          Why Iraqis Are Protesting

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Post #8 (11-25-19)          Why Iraqis Are Protesting

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Residents of Sadr City are protesting against the government; this article explains their reasoning behind it. The poor people in the city are fed up with the corrupt government and unemployment. Demanding change and are no longer afraid fight for it; and there have been many killed and injured because of it.

These people are protesting for clean water, access to education and food; to me, these are basic necessities. I have thought about the good that can come out of globalization, especially for these people. However, I have to consider how the US could help, would it be better or worse?

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Sadr City residents have come in droves to Baghdad's protests, driven by anger at the Iraq government's neglect and fueled by their long history of defiance.

Young men crowding onto an unfinished building that overlooks Tahrir Square, site of mass protests in Baghdad. Credit... Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

"Let us be frank, we are poor people in Sadr City and we need many things: schools, health clinics, jobs," said Mr. al-Kaabi, who drives a taxi to support his family.

"What is a pity is that we believed the politicians who said, 'vote for us and we will do our best for you,'" he said. "But then we found they were liars and so now we are saying, 'enough.'"

For the last five weeks, more than 200,000 Iraqis across the country have gathered on any given day to demonstrate against the government. Security forces have killed at least 320 and wounded about 15,000, according to the United Nations office in Iraq.

The protesters are angry about corruption, unemployment and Iran's influence. Many are educated, idealistic young people, who are mostly urban and secular. But the largest group are working-class and poor Shiite Muslims, either from the southern part of the country or with origins there.

These Iraqis have suffered decades of economic deprivation as well as government oppression by the Sunni Muslims, who controlled the government during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. And they have a history of violent resistance.

They feel frustrated that having endured Saddam Hussein's reign, the civil war that followed his overthrow and then the invasion of the Islamic State, their lives have seen little improvement.

Most of Sadr City's residents are descended from people who migrated from Iraq's south, and retain rural and tribal ties there. So the neighborhood offers a window into the passions driving the current protests and its roots in southern Iraq's tradition of defiance.

With more than three million inhabitants, Sadr City is crowded and littered. Its larger boulevards give way to smaller unpaved streets and cracked asphalt alleys.

Public baths are a feature of life, a place for male bonding and a rare source of plentiful hot water. As in much of Baghdad, electricity is rarely on for more than half the day, but hardly any family can afford its own generator, so vast spider webs of wire spin out from ones shared by a neighborhood.

The heat in the summer means life is lived on the street, and in makeshift gardens and empty lots. People sleep on the roofs to escape the indoor swelter.

It is easy to find transport to the demonstrations; in Sadr City, ancient taxis spew fumes next to horse-drawn wagons and thousands of tuk-tuks. Rarely seen in more affluent Baghdad neighborhoods, the three-wheeled, motorized tuk-tuk has become the demonstrators' unofficial bus and ambulance service.

"This is a revolution of the poor, of the disappointed," Abu Tiba said.

The first settlers in Sadr City, mostly poor farmers and fishermen, came more than 60 years ago to escape the punishing feudal system run by wealthy sheikhs who cared little for those who worked their fields and harvested their date trees.

Revolt and resistance was part of their identity. Their grandfathers in the south resisted British efforts to colonize Iraq in 1920. They lost that battle but not their suspiciousness of outsiders.

Most Sadr City residents, like many people in southern Iraq, are followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, a nationalist and populist Shiite cleric and leader whose family long resisted the authority of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

The dictator assassinated Mr. al-Sadr's father and brothers, and tortured to death other family members. Those loyal to the Sadr family suffered as well.

There was forced conscription during the Iran-Iraq war, from 1980 to 1988. "Almost every family was touched by this," said Mr. Abbas, the Sadr City poet.

There was routine targeting of anyone trying to pray in public, which Saddam Hussein saw as an effort to rally the Shiites against the ruling Sunnis, said Sheikh Jalil al-Sarkhi, 70, a cleric and Sadr City native, who leads a modest mosque there.

"I could be arrested just for carrying a prayer rug," he said.

Those decades of resistance prepared Sadr City for its fight against the Americans.

Mr. al-Sadr wanted the United States military out of Iraq. When the Americans came and tried to subdue his militias, United States soldiers were relentlessly attacked.

Roadside bombs targeted Humvees, and booby traps littered the neighborhood. Children were used as lookouts.

Sadr City today remains armed and ready to defend its own.

The Sadr Organization, of which Abu Tiba is a member, and which has ties to Mr. al-Sadr's militia, is helping to coordinate the protests from the neighborhood. Its members are thick on the ground at the protests, controlling strategic positions.

In midafternoon, Abu Tiba met with leaders of his sub-tribe, the Al Bunda. There were about 20 men in tribal robes and their sons and a few daughters, dressed neatly as if for the first day of school; they climbed into minibuses, taxis, a pickup truck and a jeep.

As they drove off, all of Sadr City seemed to be coming along with them. At a traffic circle, a father and daughter clambered into the pickup. Everyone was waving flags and honking horns.

Abu Tiba's group parked more than a mile from the protests and unfurled its tribal flag.

Out of nowhere some of the men produced instruments - a large drum and the traditional southern reed flute. The group half walked, half danced the final mile, chanting, "Shala kala, kulhom haramiya" or "Pull them out by the roots, all of them are thieves."

A woman who had brought her five children - all wearing tribal flags - said she had come from Sadr City to support "our brothers."

"Really I want change," said Najla Latif, 42. "Our patience is over now, we waited 16 years after Saddam and we still have nothing."

Falih Hassan contributed reporting from Baghdad.

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'Our Patience Is Over': Why Iraqis Are Protesting

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Sadr City residents have come in droves to Baghdad's protests, driven by anger at the Iraq government's neglect and fueled by their long history of defiance. "Let us be frank, we are poor people in Sadr City and we need many things: schools, health clinics, jobs," said Mr. al-Kaabi, who drives a taxi to support his family.

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Post #7 (11-6-19)                      4 Day Work Week in Japan 

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Post #7 (11-6-19)                      4 Day Work Week in Japan 

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Microsoft Japan changed their workweek so that workers only work four days a week. This article emphasizes that productivity in the company boosted 40% after this change. Globalization is interesting in the sense that countries are always looking to be better and more productive.

I chose this article to talk about is because it made me curious, it made me think about how the US. likes to be a leader in every aspect and how this could lead to changes made here. I always find it interesting when another country comes up with a good idea and how the US. Responds to it.

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Workers at Microsoft Japan enjoyed an enviable perk this summer: working four days a week, enjoying a three-day weekend - and getting their normal, five-day paycheck. The result, the company says, was a productivity boost of 40%.

Microsoft Japan says it became more efficient in several areas, including lower electricity costs, which fell by 23%. And as its workers took five Fridays off in August, they printed nearly 60 percent fewer pages.

All of the employees who took Fridays off were given special paid leave, the company says. Encouraged by the results, it's planning to hold a similar trial in the winter.

Because of the shorter workweek, the company also put its meetings on a diet. The standard duration for a meeting was slashed from 60 minutes to 30 - an approach that was adopted for nearly half of all meetings. In a related cut, standard attendance at those sessions was capped at five employees.

In a blog post announcing the plan in July, Microsoft Japan said there was often no reason for meetings to run an hour, or to tie up multiple people from the same team.

Citing the need for a shift in time management, the Microsoft division also urged people to use collaborative chat channels rather than "wasteful" emails and meetings.

The news prompted excitement among many workers in Japan. A sampling of comments from the Asian news site Sora News 24 ranges from "Here's to hoping my boss reads about this" to "So I guess me feeling like I'm ready to be done for the week by Wednesday is pretty natural."

Four-day workweeks made headlines around the world in the spring of 2018, when Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand trust management company, announced a 20% gain in employee productivity, and a 45% increase in employee work-life balance after a trial of paying people their regular salary for working four days. Last October, the company made the policy permanent.

The Microsoft trial roughly doubled Perpetual Guardian's productivity gain. But for now at least, the company isn't saying whether it will test the four-day workweek policy in other locations, or consider making it permanent.

Noting that Microsoft Japan's "Work Life Choice Challenge 2019 Summer" was a pilot project, a Microsoft spokesperson tells NPR via email, "In the spirit of a growth mindset, we are always looking for new ways to innovate and leverage our own technology to improve the experience for our employees around the globe."

Many employees might be heartened by the prospect of a three-day weekend, but trials like the recent one in Japan are still only drops in a very large bucket of companies and workers worldwide. While employers could now be more likely to experiment by shortening their own workweeks, workplace analyst and author Dan Schawbel says that for the time being, employees are more likely to focus on a more common workplace perk: flexibility.

"Younger people actually choose work flexibility over health care coverage, even though that expense in America is pretty high," Schawbel says.

In the U.S., Schawbel sees schedule flexibility and a four-day week as two ways for employers to ease what he calls an ongoing burnout crisis.

At the heart of the discussion of workplace burnout and schedule flexibility is technology. The same electronic tools that have made working from home easier than ever, have also made it harder for employees to fully unplug from their jobs when they aren't in the office.

It's an area that's already being explored in Europe, home of some of the world's strongest work-life balance laws. France has granted employees the right to disconnect from their jobs, limiting email and other communications after hours, for instance.

But there are signs that the shorter workweek may increasingly become a political issue, similar to parental leave and other benefits. In the U.K., the Labor Party recently made the four-day workweek - at no change in pay - one of its central policies.

Backers of such moves point to a general trend toward shorter workweeks. When the Labour embraced the idea, shadow chancellor John McDonnell was quoted by Labour List as saying, "the average full-time working week fell from nearly 65 hours in the 1860s to 43 hours in the 1970s."

Since the 1970s, the workweek has stopped shrinking despite sharp gains in worker productivity, McDonnell said. And as U.S. economists have noted, compensation has lagged behind productivity in that same period.

In 2017, a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report found that from 1987 to 2015, productivity rose by as much as 5% annually in industry sectors from information to manufacturing and retail - but compensation never grew by more than 2% in each year of that same period.

Faced with decades of stagnant wage growth, it seems that many workers are now seeking more flexibility - and dreaming of a shorter workweek.

But the current enthusiasm for a four-day workweek should not be taken as proof that today's employees simply want to avoid work altogether. To illustrate that point, Schawbel refers to what he calls "the money question" from an often-cited 2018 survey he conducted with Kronos.

The question was straightforward, as Schawbel recalls: "If your pay is constant, how many days a week do you want to work?"

One of the potential replies to that question was simply, "None." But only 4 percent of the workers chose that answer. Only slightly more people chose one day, or two.

The biggest portion - 34 percent - said they want a four-day workweek. The current standard five-day week got 28 percent support. And 20 percent said they'd prefer a three-day workweek.

"It's important," Schawbel says, "because it shows people want to work."

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Microsoft Japan Says 4-Day Workweek Boosted Workers' Productivity By 40%

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Workers at Microsoft Japan enjoyed an enviable perk this summer: working four days a week, enjoying a three-day weekend - and getting their normal, five-day paycheck. The result, the company says, was a productivity boost of 40%. Microsoft Japan says it became more efficient in several areas, including lower electricity costs, which fell by 23%.

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Post #6: (11-4-19)                    Day of the Dead Women

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Post #6: (11-4-19)                    Day of the Dead Women

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This article illustrates how there was a march where more than 100 purple crosses were carried in honor of women that have been killed or gone missing in Mexico City. Not only did the protesters want to bring awareness, but to also demand justice in the legal system. Additionally, how Latin America has the highest level of femicide.

This is related to our class because we are learning about how globalization is not always beneficial to the Global South. So, who is looking out for women in Latin America? How many more will have to die? Is globalization going to help?

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Following "Day of the Dead" celebrations, demonstrators marched through Mexico City calling for an end to violence against women.

The marchers carried more than 100 purple crosses through the capital, each bearing the name of a woman who has been murdered or gone missing.

The demonstration was called "Dia de Muertas", or "Day of the Dead Women".

Femicide, the murder of a woman because of her gender, kills 12 women daily in Latin America according to the UN.

Large posters showed the faces of missing or murdered women in rows of up to forty, with captions calling for justice. Another poster simply read "Not one more".

The names of the victims were also written on the surfaces of two larger purple crosses that were carried through the demonstration.

Image Copyright @LupitaLuttmann @LupitaLuttmann Report

Image Copyright @LupitaLuttmann @LupitaLuttmannReport

The march was organised by "Voices of Absence", led by Frida Guerrera, a journalist and activist.

The group say they want to give a voice to the women who are killed because of their gender by raising awareness of cases, and demanding justice through the legal system.

Frida Guerrera posted about the march on her website, saying it represented "the eternal altars that are installed in the homes of these families in perpetual mourning".

Latin America is home to 14 of the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicide in the world, and 98% of gender-related killings go unprosecuted.

An initiative for eliminating violence against women in Latin America was launched by the UN last year.

The deputy head of the UN, Amina Mohammed, praised Mexico, among other Latin American countries, for having the "political courage to confront and end femicide".

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'Day of the dead women' protest in Mexico City

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Following "Day of the Dead" celebrations, demonstrators marched through Mexico City calling for an end to violence against women. The marchers carried more than 100 purple crosses through the capital, each bearing the name of a woman who has been murdered or gone missing.

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Post #5 (10-30-19)                       Exploration of Exile for Muslim Women 

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Post #5 (10-30-19)                       Exploration of Exile for Muslim Women 

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Shirin Neshat has and art exhibit that explores political conflict, “personal longing”, exile and power. This article talks about her own experiences about growing up in Northern Iran and about how women “functioned both as symbols of liberation and submission”. Neshat also talks a lot about the “Land of Dreams” and what it was like to be an immigrant.

This article is related to class because we learned about struggles of women in the Global South and also about immigration.  She even talks about being a foreigner in her own hometown (US); this is related to the film “Which Way Home”.

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A young woman emerges from a mountain in New Mexico, clambers into an old Mercedes and tools through the high desert in search of dreams. They are the dreams of ordinary people. Dreams about apocalypse, loss and salvation. Dreams that the young woman dutifully compiles into dossiers, then takes back to a strange bureaucracy obscured deep within the mountain's folds.

The surreal tale is the latest video installation from artist Shirin Neshat, currently the subject of a one-woman show at the Broad museum titled "I Will Greet the Sun Again." It is the largest exhibition to date for the New York-based artist, who over more than three decades has produced sumptuous films and photographs that explore the nature of political conflict, personal longing, power and exile.

They are works inspired by her own condition: Iranian, an emigré, a woman - someone who found her life turned upside down by the currents of history.

Neshat, who was born in the medieval capital of Qazvin in northern Iran, came to the U.S. at age 17 as a student in 1975, first at University High School in West L.A. and then U.C. Berkeley, at the behest of her father. Four years later, she found herself unmoored from family and country when the Iranian Revolution toppled the monarchy of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, and in its place installed a theocracy led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

She wouldn't see her family again for almost a dozen years.

"All of these things made their way into my work: fear, vulnerability, being an outcast," says Neshat, now 62, as she breezes through the Broad's galleries in the chaotic days before her show's opening. "Every woman in my film is an outcast, they are rebellious, they are running away."

Despite her undergraduate and graduate studies in art at Berkeley, Neshat didn't begin making art in earnest until the 1990s - after she returned to Iran for the first time in 15 years following the conclusion of the devastating Iran-Iraq War in 1988.

"I was so happy to go back," she says. "But when I arrived it was a shocker. ... The country turned almost black and white."

That trip ignited in Neshat a renewed interest in engaging Iranian culture, in particular the complicated status of women.

"Women of Allah," her first photographic series, features chador-clad women bearing weapons inspired by the Iranian women called to arms during the Iran-Iraq War - women who functioned both as symbols of liberation and submission. The works went beyond visual impact: Neshat laced the surfaces of the images with calligraphic poems by poets such as Forugh Farrokhzad that explored themes of feminine fulfillment and desire.

As her artistic profile grew, Neshat's explorations grew more cinematic.

"Turbulent," from 1998, for example, shows a man and a woman facing off in a pair of poignant sung performances - a work that earned Neshat the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999. (The charismatic Shoja Azari, her partner and frequent collaborator plays the male singer.)

In the last half dozen years, the artist has turned her eye away from Iran and toward other locations, creating work in Azerbaijan, Mexico and Egypt - including an experimental film inspired by the legendary Egyptian songstress Umm Kulthum.

"There is this really powerful moment we try to capture," says the exhibition's curator Ed Schad of the shift in Neshat's career. "She starts to think, in the face of crisis, what do various cultures share? Are there symbols that designate sanctuary? Places you go to flee from harm? Things that you look to protect you in moments of emergency?"

It was that instinct that ultimately led her to New Mexico earlier this spring to shoot "Land of Dreams," the surreal tale that is making its debut in her show at the Broad.

Looking stylish in kohl-rimmed eyes and a navy jacket with epaulets, Neshat took time to discuss her work, how it has shifted over time, and why it was time to let Iran go.

You spent your career making art that engaged Iranian themes, then in 2012 you created "Book of Kings," a photo installation partly inspired by the Arab Spring. Why the switch?

I reached a point of exhaustion of nostalgia - of always making work about a country I can never enter. After "Book of Kings," you begin to see me looking into other nations as an outsider going in. "The Home of My Eyes" is about Azerbaijan. I made a movie about an Egyptian singer - Umm Kulthum. What remains constant is me and I'm Iranian, so the point of view is Iranian. But I don't have to go on forever creating this sense of memory and clinging to something that doesn't want me back. It's about accepting this nomadism in my life.

In "Land of Dreams," you turn your attention to the United States.

I've felt uncomfortable making work about this country even though I've lived here longer than in my own country. I've always felt like an outsider. When I did "Land of Dreams," it was a moment when immigrants started to feel cornered. I wanted to think about the idea of being an immigrant.

All of my earlier work - "Women of Allah" and "Book of Kings" - are politically charged. And the discourse around those was reduced to that political discussion. But I had started to gravitate to magical realism, then to dreams themselves. Dreams are innocent. You can kill a person in a dream, but it's just a dream. Dreams have references to reality but they are not real. We dream regardless of where we come from. Our nightmares are common: fear of abandonment, death.

Me as an immigrant going to New Mexico - I started to feel I had so much in common with these people. We are all foreigners inside a country we call home.

What kept you artistically linked with Iran for so long?

I left when I was young without my choice. I found myself in Los Angeles alone without my family - and it was devastating for me. Then I went to Berkeley, which had a lot of anti-Iranian sentiment. I desperately wanted to go home but couldn't go back. I didn't see my family for 11 years. Without being overly melodramatic, the relationship with my family and my country became unresolved.

I went back to Iran in 1990 and everything fused together. It was becoming an artist again, being with family, being more mature as a human being. I had suffered a lot and I was like, no, I won't let go of what I've gained. I wouldn't allow this disconnect to happen again.

[After 1996], I was not able to go back and the relationship to Iran changed, but I created a new Iran inside New York. We have this family of friends. We are a tribe. There are like 15 of us who do this, who make these films together. We have created this community - and the unresolved, I think it became more resolved.

You didn't make art for the first 10 years after you got out of graduate school at Berkeley. Did becoming an artist later in life change the nature of your work?

I didn't come to art for a career. It was an accident. I went to art when I had the maturity to be an artist, when I knew I had something to say. I talk to young artists and I say, watch out for art schools. Art is a reflection of what you gain in life - from the pains in life. I'm not saying everyone's work should be autobiographical. But there should be a mental preparation, a maturity. The only reason I became an artist was the urgency of my life experiences. The work I make comes out of urgency.

How did your early experiences in Los Angeles shape you?

I hated it. [Laughs.] Can I say that? We in Iran, we fantasized about America as if everything was Hollywood. We imagined Los Angeles as this image of perfection. I arrived and we were students and we didn't have much money. (My sister and I came together.) We lived in ugly apartments and I remember I was terrified. I didn't speak a word of English. When I was brought to high school on that first day, I wanted to run away.

I lived with a French Jewish family taking care of their child. I got house and board in exchange and they took care of me. (They're coming to the opening.) My sister had to go back. My father came for a visit and I begged him to take me back. He took me to San Francisco to show me how great America is and I cried and cried. And then they left me and went home.

By the time I got to Berkeley, the revolution had happened and I was caught off guard. The money my parents were sending me stopped. The borders closed and I had to support myself. There was no communication with Iran. This was also at the time that the hostages were taken and a lot of Iranian students went back - they had gone back during the revolution. And a lot of them died and were killed. [Khomeini was killing intellectuals and students.] And here there were these protests against Iranians and I was Iranian. Those were difficult years.

We are at another moment of inflamed rhetoric against Iran. How do you contend with that?

It's unbelievable these two countries haven't been able to reconcile. That goes back to 1953. Iranians have never been able to trust Americans again after they overthrew their democratically elected prime minister [ Mohammad Mossadegh]. Most Americans are oblivious that the Islamic revolution was a reaction to what happened after the 1953 coup. The rage, the anger that came from the Iranian community, when they found out what the CIA did - the anti-Western sentiment, it was not just in the clergy, it was among intellectuals. Now with Trump, it's a very interesting thing to look at the history of tension with Iran.

It's interesting to look at [my] show and see how it references some of those periods. If you look [closely], you see politics and poetry. That defines Iranians: people who have endured horrible tyranny, dictatorship, from ancient to modern or contemporary, but have this amazing imagination. The identity of Iranian people can be defined by terrible politics and amazing imagination in poetry.

In interviews, you've frequently challenged the idea of Muslim women as victims.

I'm so glad you brought that up. One of the things I battle with in the Western media is that no matter my work - whether the woman is protesting, is rebellious, is breaking the norms, whether it's through a state of madness or walking out, they have stood up against the system. Yes, there are oppressions, but women have stood up. The biggest fighters in Iran today are the women. The most unafraid people in Iran are women. I've always tried to say that.

It's celebrating different forms of feminisms. It's not trying to be like men, but creating an authentic voice that is strong and confrontational. My mother was the person in control in my household, and in my life, I'm the boss.

What part of you do you see as Iranian? And what part is American?

My emotions are Iranian. There is a melancholy. I think my emotional response to art, to places, to everything, it's Iranian. I cry easily with Persian music, Arabic music - in a way that nothing Western touches me. But the thing that is very Western is my independence. If they say, "You can't." I'm like, "F-- you. I'm going to do it."

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Artist Shirin Neshat challenges the idea of Muslim women as victims and explores exile

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A young woman emerges from a mountain in New Mexico, clambers into an old Mercedes and tools through the high desert in search of dreams. They are the dreams of ordinary people. Dreams about apocalypse, loss and salvation. Dreams that the young woman dutifully compiles into dossiers, then takes back to a strange bureaucracy obscured deep within the mountain's folds.

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Post #1: (9-17-19)        Roads in Thailand  

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Post #1: (9-17-19)        Roads in Thailand  

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This article discusses how deadly the roads in Thailand especially for poor people. Poor families can only afford scooters to get around which makes it easier to get killed on the road. Thailand was named the most unequal country last year; the article discusses not only the wealth gaps but also the differences between the “haves and the have-nots”.

This article connects to our class because as illustrated, the poor people are left out of economic growth and consideration when it comes to globalization. People are only concerned about themselves and their wealth instead of the community they live in.

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The rules of a highly unequal society extend even to the highways, where have-nots are far more likely to be killed than haves.

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อ่านภาษาไทย When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series, The Times investigates to see if those promises were kept.
BANGKOK - The Thai woman was riding on a motorcycle on her way to work when a pickup truck sideswiped her on a rural stretch of asphalt in northeastern Thailand. The truck's driver was an off-duty police officer. He was drunk.

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

The officer who struck her still has his police job. His driver's license was not taken away. A court declined to sentence him to prison.

In Thailand, one of the world's most unequal societies, even roads have a rigid hierarchy, with the poor far more likely to be killed in accidents than the well-off and well-connected.

And there are many deaths: Thailand had the world's second-highest rate of road fatalities per capita, surpassed only by war-afflicted, lawless Libya, according to a 2015 report from the World Health Organization. When it comes to per-capita motorcycle deaths, the country is No. 1.

"I never thought about road deaths until this happened to my mother," said Chularat Chanhom, Ms. Orathai's adult daughter. "I had no idea it was such a big problem in Thailand."

The government vowed at a United Nations forum in 2015 to halve the number of road traffic deaths by 2020. With less than one year to go before the deadline, however, Thailand is a long way from fulfilling that promise, its roads still ranking among the world's 10 most dangerous, with more than 20,000 preventable fatalities a year.

The country has seen a small dip in road deaths since 2015, and Thailand has in place many of the necessary laws to make its roads safer.

But what the government has not addressed is the country's vast gap in wealth, which is the core issue that not only makes its roads so deadly, but has also split the country into two bitterly divided political camps: Thailand's haves and have-nots.

What We Found

Thailand, named the most unequal country of the 40 major economies surveyed last year by Credit Suisse, has what might be the world's most toxic combination for traffic safety.

Unlike poorer countries, its roads are well paved and made for speed, and the cars driven by the rich and its growing middle class tend to be new and fast.

But many Thai families can afford only a single scooter or motorcycle, and high-quality helmets are a luxury for many, whatever the law says about their being mandatory to wear.

In accidents on the country's crowded roads, it's a devastating mismatch when an air-conditioned SUV collides with a two-wheeler, scattering the detritus of death across the asphalt. And the aftermath of such accidents are a common, macabre sight on Thai thoroughfares: a shredded tire, a mangled frame of steel, a bloody plastic flip-flop.

Motorcycle accidents can involve multiple fatalities. Because public transportation is limited outside the big cities, it's not uncommon to see a couple of adults - and even a child or two crammed between them - balanced on a single bike.

Only 12 percent of Thailand's road traffic deaths involved occupants of cars or other light vehicles, according to the 2018 W.H.O. Global Status Report on Road Safety. Most of the dead were motorcyclists - or pedestrians.

In many Thai towns, there are few wide, easily usable sidewalks because, critics say, they are not a priority for the rich and influential, who prefer not to walk in Thailand's oppressive heat. When there are wide footpaths, they often overflow with street stalls and even motorcycle traffic, pushing people into the roads.

The country's economic disparity is not the only reason Thailand's road deaths are not distributed equally. Justice, too, is handed out unevenly.

For the superrich, or those in positions of authority, the rules of the road may not apply at all. They know they can speed with impunity and drink heavily before getting behind the wheel, with little fear of the consequences.

In 2012, a young man in a Ferrari - the heir to the Red Bull energy drink fortune - plowed into a policeman, dragging him to his death. The driver, Vorayuth Yoovidhaya, was intoxicated, according to a test. Seven years later, he has never been prosecuted.

"What is clear in Thailand is that the roads are not safe for all users," said Evelyn Murphy, who specializes in unintentional injury prevention at the W.H.O. "Whether it's cars or motorcycles or pedestrians, the safety of all users of roads must be considered, regardless of income level."

What We Found

Speeding, drunken driving and failing to wear proper helmets are the primary causes of traffic deaths in the country, Thai officials said.

While the laws are there to combat each of those factors, enforcement is not.

Wearing helmets is required on two-wheelers, but fines are rarely dispensed, unless the police need to meet a specific quota during a crackdown period.

Unaccustomed to checkpoints or sirens, speeders or other rule-breakers may not even pull over when caught.

"It's hard to convince people to stop for us when they are not used to stopping," said Maj. Gen. Jirasunt Kaewsaengeak, the deputy commissioner of the Bangkok Metropolitan Police.

Then, there is corruption. The rich or well connected know a bribe can often see them on their way if they are nabbed breaking traffic laws.

Bangkok's 3,000 traffic police make an average of $600 a month for working in broiling heat, monsoonal downpours and suffocating smog, which can make even small payoffs highly appealing, and effective.

Twice a year, during the Thai New Year in April and the Western New Year in January, campaigns warn against drunken driving, complete with billboards of gory crashes. Arrests skyrocket during these periods, but then quickly fall off again.

"If you eat vegetables twice a year and only eat ice cream for the rest of the year, your doctor will think you are crazy," said Tairjing Siriphanich, the secretary general of the Don't Drive Drunk Foundation of Thailand. "But that's what we are doing with road safety."

What We Found

When asked why so many people die on Thai roads, officials here ascribe it to a "sabai sabai" culture.

Sabai sabai is one of those untranslatable phrases, but it denotes a kind of relaxed contentment. Sabai sabai is one reason Thailand is a great place for a beach holiday. But it's not a helpful attitude when building national safety standards.

"If police enforce the law, rather than just give a verbal warning, then Thai people are unhappy, and they complain that it's not sabai sabai," General Jirasunt said.

A prime example of the effect of the sabai sabai way of life on traffic safety is the approach to helmets. Many motorcyclists simply don't bother.

"People think air pollution is a threat, but they don't think the same way about drunken driving or wearing helmets," said Mr. Tairjing of the Don't Drive Drunk Foundation. "We have failed to make people understand that they can save their own lives."

But the authorities can make a difference: In the districts where police are known to hand out fines, helmets are more common.

The government could also do more to educate Thais about helmets, which are often substandard or worn incorrectly.

"When you see someone who makes the effort to put on a helmet without actually strapping it on, it defeats the whole purpose of wearing it," said Ms. Murphy, of the W.H.O. "It shows a lack of understanding of basic safety mechanisms."

What We Found

In 2016, 32.7 out of every 100,000 Thais died on the country's roads, according to the most recent W.H.O. estimates. By comparison, the road fatality rate in the United States was 12.4 that year. In Indonesia, a less developed Southeast Asian country with more potholed roads, the rate was 12.2. Across most of Europe, it was a single-digit number.

Since the government made its promise to halve road deaths, a vow other countries have also made,Thailand has barely inched upward, moving from the country with the next-to-worst per-capita death tally to the ninth-worst.

"No political party has made this an issue. No leader wants to do anything," said Mr. Tairjing of the Don't Drive Drunk Foundation. "They just make promises to halve the number of road deaths even though they know it's impossible. Maybe they think we'll forget about the promises they made."

The question of who is at fault for Thailand's lack of progress draws a lot of finger pointing by Thai officials.

Chayatan Phromsorn, the deputy director-general of the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, the agency that pledged to the United Nations to halve the number of road deaths, said he was not familiar with the document that detailed Thailand's promise. (That English-language document was never made available online in Thai script.)

The official who presented the paper to the United Nations in 2015 said she had done so only because her colleague was unable to attend the conference. In turn, that colleague, Usanisa Jikyong, said in an email that her office "is not responsible for a road safety initiative in the national level."

Ms. Usanisa suggested that another government agency, the department of disaster prevention and mitigation at the Ministry of Interior, was in charge of such matters. But Chayabol Thitisak, the department's director general, shifted responsibility back to Ms. Usanisa's office.

Officials at both agencies said that the blame lay primarily with the police.

"The big factor is law enforcement," Mr. Chayabol said. "We have to make people realize that by violating the law they will face severe consequences."

But the police refused to accept fault.

"As police, there are many things we cannot do," General Jirasunt said. "We cannot build more roads and public transportation. We cannot change the number of cars on the road. We cannot change the attitudes of people so they have discipline."

What We Found

The World Bank estimated in a 2018 study that Thailand could lift its per-capita gross domestic product by 22 percent by the year 2038 if it successfully halved its traffic fatalities.

Despite that economic upside, the government - led by a retired military general since a 2014 coup - has done little to address the wealth gap that's at the core of Thailand's problem with road deaths.

The country has made a few road-safety improvements. Schools have added road safety lessons to their curriculums, and there has been some progress in setting new vehicle safety standards.

The numbers do show a slight improvement: Road deaths were 7 percent lower in 2018, with 22,491 deaths compared with 24,237 in 2015.

While the enormous macroeconomic cost of all these road deaths can be measured, what can't be given a dollar figure is the personal toll inflicted on individuals by the inequality and impunity that menaces Thailand's roads.

The family of Ms. Orathai, the killed motorcyclist, has no lawyer to pursue a civil claim. It did not appeal the decision not to jail the officer. There is no further legal action to take.

"In Thailand, the law does not matter," said Ms. Chularat, her daughter. "People like us, how can we change anything? Even if we die for no reason, our lives are worthless."

The Takeaway: For the poor, Thailand's roads are unsafe at any speed.

Ryn Jirenuwat contributed reporting.

Hannah Beech has been the Southeast Asia bureau chief since 2017, based in Bangkok. Before joining The Times, she reported for Time magazine for 20 years from bases in Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok and Hong Kong. @hkbeech

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: On Thailand's Roads, Traveling While Poor Generates Little Justice. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Thailand's Roads Are Deadly. Especially if You're Poor.

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The rules of a highly unequal society extend even to the highways, where have-nots are far more likely to be killed than haves. อ่านภาษาไทย When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series , The Times investigates to see if those promises were kept.

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Post #2: (9-30-19)        Sharp Decline of birds in North America      

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Post #2: (9-30-19)        Sharp Decline of birds in North America      

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In North America there has been 3 billion species of birds that have gone extinct since 1970. This article discusses how this sharp decline is not only bad for birds, but the ecosystem as well. Human activity has led to the extinction of animals for decades, however, a loss this big can really harm the ecosystem for generations to come.

This was highlighted in the Global Banquet movie; they mentioned that genetically modified foods and the use of pesticides is harmful to the ecosystem. Species of birds are going extinct for the sole fact that big companies want to save money.

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North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970, according to a new analysis of bird survey and radar data from across the continent.

The sharp decline, described in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, is not just bad for birds. It also bodes ill for the ecosystems those birds inhabit, and points to a need for action to halt and perhaps reverse the drop, scientists said.

"Three billion was a pretty astounding number for us," said lead author Kenneth Rosenberg, a conservation scientist at Cornell University and the American Bird Conservancy.

Many animals are threatened with extinction because of human activity, but that's not the only way we do harm. The loss of abundance spells trouble too because it can have profound consequences for the ecosystems they inhabit.

Conservationists studying North American birds had known that at least some species were declining, but they didn't know what the net loss, or gain, for all birds might be.

"Previously we didn't have good estimates of population size," Rosenberg said. "We knew the trends, but we didn't really know how many birds of each kind were out there."

To find out, he and his colleagues analyzed more than a dozen bird survey data sets that covered 529 bird species across a host of ecosystems in the U.S. and Canada. These data sets, such as the North American Breeding Bird Survey, rely on citizen scientists who fan out along North American roadsides every year to conduct their counts. The records go back decades.

The researchers were also able to track feathered fliers with a network of 143 weather-radar sites, which often catch migrating birds on their nighttime routes.

The data added up to a grim conclusion: Over nearly half a century, bird populations in North America experienced a steep decline. There are 2.9 billion fewer birds today than there were in 1970 - a reduction of 29%.

Steven Beissinger, a conservation biologist at UC Berkeley, called the results and their implications "dizzying."

"I was pretty surprised," said Beissinger, who was not involved in the study. "We don't usually think in billions of birds."

Of those lost birds, 90% came from just 12 bird families that include common and widespread species such as sparrows, swallows, warblers and finches.

Declines in the abundance of common species may not seem as dramatic as the endangerment of rare ones, but it is a very serious form of ecosystem erosion, the scientists said.

That's because abundant species often play important roles in their biomes, whether they control pests, pollinate flowers, disperse seeds, provide food for other animals and even contribute to the natural beauty of an area that draws tourists who support local economies.

"When you're losing abundance, you're losing the fabric of the food chains, the fabric of the ecosystems - more perhaps than losing one rare species," Rosenberg said.

It's hard to say what ecosystem services have been lost or degraded because of the loss of birds over the last half-century, Beissinger said. For example, if there were more birds around to eat bugs, farmers might be using less pesticide.

(Jay McGowan and Brian Sullivan / Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Michael Parr / American Bird Conservancy)

Other formerly common species have fallen from mere loss of abundance to elimination.

Rosenberg pointed to the example of the passenger pigeon. Once it was probably the most abundant bird on the planet, but it was hunted into extinction by 1914. He added that the trend line of passenger pigeons' losses looks similar to the trend seen in the new study, according to work by one of his coauthors, Jessica Stanton of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"Nobody ever thought the passenger pigeon would go extinct - and it did in a relatively short period," Rosenberg said. "We're not saying these other birds are on their way to extinction, but it certainly should give us pause."

Across ecosystems, grassland birds - a group that includes sparrows and meadowlarks - were hit the hardest, the researchers said. Since 1970, their numbers have fallen by more than 720 million, representing 53% of the initial population.

Taken together, more than 1 billion birds have been lost from all forest biomes. Shorebirds, long threatened by the draining of coastal wetlands and urbanization, saw declines of more than 37%. Even the 10 nonnative species counted in the paper experienced a population loss of 63%.

The researchers did not weigh in on specific causes for these declines. But Rosenberg said other work has pointed to habitat loss due to urbanization, pollution, pesticides, and the intensification and expansion of agriculture as likely culprits.

There were a few success stories in the data that could offer a road map for aiding other bird populations, Rosenberg said. Wetland birds, such as ducks and geese, have increased, primarily because of conservation efforts that protected wetland habitats over the last few decades. (Much of that conservation was driven by hunters, who wanted to maintain healthy populations, he added.)

And raptors such as bald eagles, ospreys and peregrine falcons have also improved since the 1970s, when their numbers had been decimated by the use of the pesticide DDT. It was banned for agricultural use in 1972, and laws that protected the birds of prey allowed them to recover.

"It's yet another example of resilience in the bird population itself if we can remove the threats and give them a chance," Rosenberg said.

(Doug Hitchcox / Macaulay Library at Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Such policies and protections need to be put in place for other birds in other habitats, said Hillary Young, a conservation biologist at UC Santa Barbara.

"It's kind of a glimmer of hope because it shows that when you do put in policies to protect these species, they do show long-term trends of recovery," Young said.

But it's not just a few kinds of birds that are suffering, she added: "We're seeing really across-the-board suffering." The breadth of that suffering shows that humans will need to do more to reduce their environmental footprint.

"We're going to have to protect everything better if we want to see recovery," she said.

There are things people can do to help halt the decline, Rosenberg said. For example, keeping cats indoors, choosing products (such as shade-grown coffee) that don't profit off the destruction of avian habitat, and planting more bird-friendly native shrubs and trees are small steps that can make a difference.

The next step, Beissinger said, will be to figure out which factors are having the biggest impact on bird numbers. "It's going to be important to try and understand what's causing this," he said.

Rosenberg, who has been an avid bird-watcher since the age of 3, said he is choosing to view the new numbers as an opportunity for action.

"It's time for us to raise our voices and act and change that way we behave and then ultimately try to enact changes in society and in policy," he said. "That's the way I'm thinking of it."

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Missing: Nearly 3 billion birds that used to live in North America

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North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970, according to a new analysis of bird survey and radar data from across the continent. The sharp decline, described in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, is not just bad for birds.

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Post #3: (10-18-19)           Air Pollution Is Linked to Miscarriages in China 

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Post #3: (10-18-19)           Air Pollution Is Linked to Miscarriages in China 

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The research done looked at four different types of air pollutants: PM2.5, sulfur dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide and linked these to pregnancy outcomes. The article touches on how air pollution is also linked to respiratory diseases and other poor health outcomes. A majority of the article talks about the high rates of miscarriage in the first trimester due to air pollution.

This was interesting to me because the purpose of globalization is to reduce infant mortality rates, however, in China the babies don’t even have a chance of being born before they are killed because of poor air quality.

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Air Pollution Is Linked to Miscarriages in China, Study Finds (Published 2019)

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A new study published on Monday adds to growing evidence of the negative health effects of air pollution on pregnant women and their fetuses.

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Post #4: (10-16-19)     Prince William Calls for Climate Change 

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Post #4: (10-16-19)     Prince William Calls for Climate Change 

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Prince William and Princess Diana visited the Chiatibo Glacier and shown how rapidly the glacier has retreated due to climate change. They stayed longer to visit people there that have been affected by climate change. The article says that younger people showed positive interest in enacting change.

This is related to class because during the first week the class talked about how climate change is a major issue that needs to be addressed. The topic of climate change is a main topic of conversation in my group every week. Bringing awareness is the first step to making positive changes.

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The Duke of Cambridge says more education and political action is needed to tackle climate change, as he visited a melting glacier in Pakistan.

The trip to a remote mountain location in the north of the country came on the third day of the royal tour.

The duke and duchess were shown how the Chiatibo Glacier had retreated rapidly in recent years due to global warming.

Prince William said communities "vulnerable to change" needed more awareness of climate change.

William and Kate take auto rickshaw to reception

We could wreck world, Attenborough tells Prince William

How do the royals travel?

The duke said young people were "starting to get engaged", adding that a "positive conversation" around the issue was needed.

The couple arrived by helicopter to the Hindu Kush mountain range in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

On their arrival Catherine was presented with a traditional Chitrali hat - almost identical to one William's late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, received on a visit to the same region 28 years ago.

The duke was also presented with a book commemorating his mother's trip to Chitral in northern Pakistan in 1991.

Global warming has seen the Chiatibo Glacier in Broghil National Park retreat by some 10 metres a year due to higher temperatures melting the ice.

The first threat from the glacier melting is flooding to communities down stream, while the second is removing the water supply completely - which provides for 200 million people in Pakistan.

Glacier expert Dr Furrukh Bashir said he hoped the duke and duchess' visit would raise awareness of the issue.

Following their trip to the glacier, the couple remained in the region to meet with communities affected by global warming.

The couple visited Bumburet, which was destroyed by flooding in 2015.

They also watched an emergency response drill, which included demonstrations of how members of the community carry casualties over a river.

In a speech on Tuesday evening, William urged the UK and Pakistan to "work together" amid an "impending global catastrophe" over climate change.

The duke and duchess also met schoolchildren and had lunch with Pakistan's prime minister and former cricket star Imran Khan, as part of their tour of the country.

The five-day trip was organised at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

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Royals urge climate change action on glacier visit

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The Duke of Cambridge says more education and political action is needed to tackle climate change, as he visited a melting glacier in Pakistan. The trip to a remote mountain location in the north of the country came on the third day of the royal tour.