Today In World News: November 15, 2017

Today In World News:

Courtesy of AP News

• President Donald Trump says the U.S. and China agree that a “freeze-for-freeze” agreement with North Korea is not acceptable. Trump is referring to a proposal, backed by both China and Russia, whereby the North would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for the U.S. and South Korea stopping military drills.

• US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has called for an independent investigation into Myanmar's Rohingya crisis.

• France said that Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who Lebanon’s president says is being held hostage by Saudi Arabia, will visit France with his family in coming days.

• Donald Trump should “under no circumstances” take military action against North Korea without the consent of the government in Seoul, the chairwoman of South Korea’s ruling party has said.

• Suicide bomb attackers killed 10 people and wounded 30 in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri. 

• North Korea’s state media is portraying Kim Jong Un as a leader who has temporarily traded weapons for workshops. The new portrayal appears designed to build domestic support by delivering on promises to develop the economy alongside the nuclear program and to reassure citizens amid tightening international sanctions.

• The Syrian army backed by Russian jets stepped up shelling and air strikes on a besieged rebel-held enclave in Damascus a day after rebels stormed an army base in the area

• Zimbabwe’s ruling party accused the head of the armed forces of treason as troops took up positions around the capital in an escalation of a dispute with 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe over political succession. The main goal of the generals appeared to be preventing Mugabe’s wife Grace, 41 years his junior, from succeeding him.

• Oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge moved closer as a key Senate panel approved a bill to open the remote refuge to energy exploration. Opening the remote refuge to oil and gas drilling is a longtime Republican priority that most Democrats fiercely oppose

• The lawyers for Ahmed Rabbani has been held at the Guantanamo Bay facility without charge for the last 13 years, and his weight has dropped to under 90 lbs (40kg) after the prison apparently changed its policy on force feeding a month and a half ago.

• Australians have overwhelmingly voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in a historic vote of 61.6%.