Meanwhile in Burma:

A court in Myanmar has rejected an appeal by two Reuters reporters jailed for breaking a state secrets act.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years in September in a case condemned around the world.

They exposed the summary execution of 10 Muslim Rohingyas by the security forces during the military’s anti-Rohingya operation in 2017.

State murder shouldn’t be protected by state secrets acts.

When arrested the two were investigating a mass execution of Rohingyas, hundreds of thousands of whom have been forced to flee destruction and persecution in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar (also called Burma).

UN investigators have called for top Myanmar generals to be investigated for genocide, and criticised the country’s de facto leader Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to stop the attacks.

The massacre the reporters were investigating is the only one the Burmese government has admitted. Myanmar’s military – which says its operations targeted militant or insurgent threats – had until then insisted its soldiers carried out no unlawful killings.

Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen J Adler called the court’s rejection “yet another injustice” against the pair.

“Reporting is not a crime, and until Myanmar rights this terrible wrong, the press in Myanmar is not free,” he said in a statement.

I don’t suppose the Trump administration will apply any pressure.