by Andy Heintz, CounterVortex

With its February coup d'etat, Burma's military—known as the Tatmadaw—has unwittingly created a nonviolent resistance that is more diverse and inclusive than any movement in the country's history. The threat of death, torture or prison has not deterred protesters from continuing to participate in acts of civil disobedience against the military and its allies. These demonstrators have shown an amazing amount of bravery and discipline by continuing to practice nonviolent resistance against a military that has once again shown it has no qualms about doing whatever it needs to do to hold onto power. This includes using live ammunition to kill peaceful protesters, arson to destroy entire villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

by Henry "Chip" Carey and Jennifer McCoy, Jurist

Americans were shocked by the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by the Proud Boys and other right-wing mobs and militia. International observers and some US politicians began referring to the country as a "banana republic"—a derogatory statement referring to banana-producing countries in Central America with histories of unstable and corrupt governments. Latin Americans generally have had more experience with and can more easily recognize thuggish behavior and its danger right away, be it from the left or the right. They therefore have been at the forefront in taking multilateral and region-wide action to promote and protect democracy.

The Western hemisphere in fact designed a process to collectively defend against threats to democracy like the one just faced by the US: the Inter-American Democratic Charter. This Charter could be invoked now to warn about the dangerous precedent set by an elected president refusing to accept the results of an electoral defeat and inciting violence to distort or prevent a peaceful transfer of power.

Seventy-five years after Japan atomic bombings, a nuclear weapons ban treaty is finally realized

by Gwyn McClelland, The Conversation

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will finally come into force after the 50th country (Honduras) ratified it October 25. The treaty will make the development, testing, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons illegal for those countries that have signed it.

This is an extraordinary achievement for those who have suffered the most from these weapons—including the hibakusha (survivors) of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the islanders who lived through nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

Since 1956, the hibakusha in Japan, South Korea, Brazil and elsewhere have been some of the most strident campaigners against the use of these weapons. Among them is a group of Japanese Catholics from Nagasaki whom I interviewed as part of my research collecting the oral histories of atomic bomb survivors.