A Bit Straighter Poem by Pierre Rausch

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon on Monday appeared to play down North Korea's six short-range missile launches over the past
three days, describing tensions on the Korean peninsula as relatively low.
DOHA - Qatar's emir, who has thrown his state's riches behind Arab uprisings, said on Monday that the emergence of 'people
power' had put Arabs in direct confrontation with Israel and made a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more pressing.
BUCHAREST - George Becali, a Romanian MP and owner of the soccer club Steaua Bucharest, was jailed for three years on Monday
for abuse of power, one of only a handful of big names to be convicted in a country trying to show it can beat high-level
corruption.
MAIDUGURI - Nigeria claimed an early success for its military offensive against Islamist insurgents in the northeast on Monday,
saying the militants' activities had been stifled by nearly a week of attacks on their bases.
MEXICO CITY - Divisions within Mexico's main conservative opposition party have erupted into a bitter public dispute that
threatens to undermine the reform agenda of President Enrique Pena Nieto.
LONDON - British Prime Minister David Cameron's flagship gay marriage policy is set to deepen a rift in his own party on Monday
with many of his own lawmakers preparing to defy him in a sign of growing strains on his leadership and his coalition
government.
MAKHACHKALA - Two car bombs killed at least three people and wounded dozens of others on Monday in Dagestan, a turbulent
province in Russia's North Caucasus region where armed groups are waging an Islamist insurgency.
JERUSALEM - A gunman shot dead four people execution-style in a bank in Israel on Monday after being refused an overdraft and
cash from its automatic teller machine.
JERUSALEM - Threatening slogans were daubed on Monday outside the doorway of an Israeli activist in a Jewish women's prayer
group seeking equal rights of worship for women at Jerusalem's holy Western Wall.