Names of Myanmar Names of Myanmar "" The country known in English as both Myanmar and Burma has undergone changes in both its official and popular names worldwide. The choice of names stems from the existence of two different names for the country in Burmese, which are used in different contexts. The official English name was changed by the country's government from the "Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 1989, and still later to the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar", which since then has been the subject of controversies and mixed incidences of adoption. In the Burmese language Myanmar
Capital punishment in the Soviet Union Capital punishment in the Soviet Union Capital punishment was a legal penalty in the Soviet Union for most of the country's existence. The legal justification of capital punishment was found in Article 22 of the Fundamental Principles of Criminal Legislation, which stated that the death penalty was permitted "as an exceptional measure of punishment, until its complete abolition". According to Western estimates, in the early 1980s Soviet courts passed around 2,000 death sentences every year, of which two-thirds were commuted to prison terms. The death penalty was not applied to minors or pregnant women. The first person to be sentenced