Globe Trot: In Mexico, violence trumps immigration in the news

MEXICO: Obama’s decision to shield from deportation 5 million illegal immigrants in the United States made only bottom-of-the-fold news in most Mexican papers because thousands have taken to the streets of Mexico City in continued protests of the apparent massacre of 43 teacher trainees. The violence, abetted perhaps by police in Iguala, has become a crisis for President Enrique Peña Nieto.

NORTH KOREA: One of the important stories of the week—overlooked here—is the unprecedented vote in the UN General Assembly on Nov. 18 to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Courts for human rights atrocities. No brainer? Not for the countries who voted against it, including: Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Laos, Burma, Oman, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. And there you have it, a “Who’s Who” of the world’s rogues and despots. Benedict Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide explains why the vote is historic and what needs to happen next.

ISLAM: Two former members of the Bush administration, Michael Gerson and Elliott Abrams, debated this week whether it’s accurate to call Islam a religion of peace. An open letter from Muslim scholars to ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that’s been floating around since late summer has drawn just over 150 signatures; for a religion of 1.6 billion adherents, wouldn't you think it’d be thousands, perhaps, given the circumstances?

EGYPT: Schools are closing in Sinai as the peninsula inches toward open war.

IRAN: Monday is the deadline for Iran and world powers to reach an agreement to constrain its nuclear power.

LAOS: Six Hmong families have been ordered to leave their villages in Laos after converting to Christianity.

QUOTABLE: Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, spoke this week at the Vatican’s international colloquim on marriage and families: “To jettison or to minimize a Christian sexual ethic is to abandon the message Jesus handed to us, and we have no authority to do this. Moreover, to do so is to abandon our love for our neighbors. We cannot offer the world the half-gospel of a surgical-strike targeted universalism, which exempts from God’s judgment those sins we fear are too fashionable to address.”