Shutdown won’t stop conference

WASHINGTON — The State Department plans to fly all of its ambassadors and other top diplomatic envoys from around the world into Washington for a conference on Wednesday and Thursday, even if the ongoing partial government shutdown continues.

Most State Department employees have been furloughed or are working without pay since the shutdown began Dec. 22. But the department will pay for travel expenses and other costs related to the forum, called the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference.

The State Department issued a statement Friday that said officials had decided to continue with the conference because “it is essential to the conduct of foreign affairs essential to national security.”

But some former diplomats criticized the State Department for pressing forward with the conference during the government shutdown.

Appeal rejected

A court in Myanmar on Friday rejected the appeal of two Reuters journalists sentenced to seven years in prison for reporting on atrocities against the country’s Rohingya minority.

The journalists, Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were convicted in September of violating the colonial-era Official Secrets act. The verdict further dampened hopes that Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmar’s civilian government and a onetime human rights icon, would usher in an era of civil liberties in a country long controlled by a military government.

The prosecution of the journalists was widely condemned by human rights and media freedom organizations.

Swearing-in protested

A large crowd blocked a major avenue in Venezuela on Friday to protest President Nicolas Maduro’s swearing-in, a ceremony that perpetuated what the opposition and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have labeled a “usurpation.”

About 1,000 people gathered in eastern Caracas to listen to Juan Guaido, the 35-year-old head of the National Assembly.

The body is the country’s only remaining oppositioncontrolled authority, and Mr. Maduro left it virtually irrelevant when he created an all-powerful body stacked with loyalists in 2017. Mr. Guaido is calling for a nationwide protest Jan. 23.

Mr. Maduro won re-election last year in a vote widely condemned as fraudulent following a boycott of major opposition parties and was sworn in Thursday. Twelve Latin American nations plus Canada — the so-called Lima Group — are urging the unpopular president to hand over power to the National Assembly and call fresh elections.