Gun Free

One reaction to the NRA's proposal to put armed police officers in every school:

'Their solution to resolve the issue around guns is to put more guns in the equation?' said Superintendent Hank Grishman of the Jericho, N.Y., schools on Long Island, who has been an educator for 44 years. 'If anything it would be less safe for kids. You would be putting them in the midst of potentially more gunfire.'

The empty symbolism of the unenforced gun-free zone is seen to be safer than a potential gunfight between good and evil. In a world without moral distinctions, good guys with guns should be avoided as much as bad guys with guns.

Advantages Of A Global Market

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Wall Street banks are looking to help offshore clients sidestep new U.S. rules designed to safeguard the world's $640 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market, taking advantage of an exemption that risks undermining U.S. regulators' efforts.

U.S. banks such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have been explaining to their foreign customers that they can for now avoid the new rules, due to take effect next month, by routing trades via the banks' overseas units, according to industry sources and presentation materials obtained by Reuters.

The rules, a result of Washington's Dodd-Frank reforms, aim to prevent financial catastrophes in the over-the-counter (OTC) market - a huge, opaque market which is partly blamed for felling Lehman Bros in 2008 and fuelling a global financial crisis.

They call for U.S. banks dealing in OTC instruments, such as interest-rate swaps and cross-currency options, to effectively set aside capital against the risk of trades turning sour, execute their trades on electronic platforms and report them to U.S. authorities - requirements that worry the banks' offshore clients and threaten to drive business away from Wall Street.

OTC brokers say liquidity has already begun to suffer.

"A Thin Line"

Russia is trying to navigate a fine balance between supporting Orthodox values and tolerating different religions.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian lawmakers are reworking a draft law introducing prison terms for religious offences after signs that Vladimir Putin is concerned it could undermine the delicate balance between the country's many religions.

The president's party proposed the law after two members of the Pussy Riot punk band were jailed for two years over a protest in a cathedral against Putin's increasingly close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Putin has trod a thin line between celebrating a secular state of many religions and promoting the Russian Orthodox Church since rising to power in 2000, but has leaned more on the Orthodox Church for support since starting his third term as president in May following protests against his rule.