From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting.

There are new reports of mass graves being discovered in Myanmar's Rakhine state where the military has been accused of atrocities against minority Rohingya Muslims.

The Associated Press reported it had confirmed the existence of at least five previously unreported mass graves in Rakhine.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert: "We are deeply, deeply troubled by those reports of mass graves and want to point out that these are in the northern Rakhine state. That is the exact area where we have seen the Rohingya flee their country for neighboring Bangladesh. We are watching this situation very carefully. As you know, the secretary had, not long ago, said that the activities taken place in the northern Rakhine state constitute ethnic cleansing."

Nauert said the reports show the need for officials in Myanmar to cooperate with an independent credible investigation into allegations of atrocities.

Lee Yanghee, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, reiterated Thursday the need for a fact finding mission to investigate alleged massacres in the country.

[a curt] A court, that is, in Myanmar has refused to grant bail to two Reuters news agency reporters accused of violating the country's Official Secrets Act.

The two reporters were detained in mid-December.

The next hearing is scheduled for February 6.

A spokesperson for Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, says someone threw a gasoline-filled bomb at her lakeside home in Yangon on Thursday. The Nobel Peace laureate was in the capital when the incident took place.

The bomb caused little damage to the residence.

This is VOA news.

Over the strong objections of the Justice Department, President Trump will clear the way for the publication of a secret memo on the Russia investigation that Republicans say shows improper use of surveillance by the FBI.

Thursday, White House officials confirmed reports that the president would do so on Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday that Cuba has the opportunity to "take a new direction" with a coming transfer of political power. He said the future of U.S.-Cuba ties is up to Havana.

"In June, President Trump laid out a new vision for our approach to Cuba: one (that) supports the Cuban people by steering economic activity away from the military, intelligence and security service, which disregard their freedom."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will speak to the U.N. Security Council on February 20.

Abbas will attend the routine monthly meeting on the Middle East, which focuses on the Israel-Palestinian issue.

Twenty-eight Russian athletes banned from the Olympics over the Sochi doping scandal have had their cases cleared, raising questions over how this affects team Russia's exclusion from the Winter Games.

Reuters correspondent Matthew Larotonda explains.

It's not yet known whether the 28 cleared athletes will be allowed to compete in Pyeonchang now. But the incident certainly raises questions over how the Sochi scandal was handled.

The so-called "Olympic athletes from Russia" have their own uniform. They just can't march under their national flag.

And the Pentagon says the military conducted an unsuccessful missile defense test over Hawaii on Wednesday.

The Pentagon's chief spokeswoman confirmed the test on Thursday. She said, "It did not meet our objectives, but we learn something all the time from these tests, and we learned something from this one."

The Missile Defense Agency said a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA that was launched from a facility in Hawaii attempted to intercept an intermediate-range ballistic missile target during the test.

This was the first test where a missile type was launched from land using a particular testing complex.

The agency is investigating what caused the test to be unsuccessful.

Japan is planning to buy the land-based system to boost its own defenses against North Korea, and the missile used in the test is still in development.

The missile defense system tested on Wednesday could be used in the Western Pacific region. However, it would not be the weapon used to protect the U.S. against a possible missile that North Korea is working to develop.

You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting from the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.