Word: blocs
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...However if the budget is not well received by a parliament calling for strong fiscal support to save Canadian jobs, the government may once again face the possibility of being toppled. Earlier this month the Conservatives narrowly escaped being replaced by a coalition of parties, including the separatist Bloc Quebecois, which wants to cede the province of Quebec from Canadian confederation...
...Sarkozy hopes to crown France's six-month presidency of the E.U. with a deal on the policies needed to meet these targets, but he will have to muster all of his Gallic charm to overcome resistance from former East bloc countries, which rely on heavily polluting coal-fired plants for energy...
...foes alike. In recent weeks, he has antagonized his Shi'ite and Kurdish allies in the ruling coalition by setting up tribal councils that are widely viewed as a direct challenge to their power on the ground. Maliki's Sunni allies in the Tawafuk Front, the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, have branded the Shi'ite prime minister as "another dictator". And Maliki remains at odds with Shi'ite opponents such as Moqtada al-Sadr, whose bloc of 28 lawmakers vociferously rejected the SOFA vote on Thursday, chanting "no, no to the agreement, yes, yes to Iraq...
...Maliki's Shi'ite and Kurdish allies backed the pact, which requires that U.S troops redeploy out of Iraqi towns and cities to bases in the countryside by June of next year, and completely withdraw by the end of 2011. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc also gave it the nod, after securing concessions on its demands for an amnesty for detainees in U.S custody, and for the holding of a referendum on the security pact next July. A ?no' vote in that referendum could torpedo the deal, and give Washington one year's notice to leave, effectively bringing forward...
...many others viewed the treaty - and the debate it provoked - as an opportunity to change the direction of the country. "This wasn't about [opposing] Maliki as a man," said Nada Ibrahim, a Sunni lawmaker from a smaller political bloc that did not vote for the SOFA. "It's about the political parties in this government, the parties that are thinking in a sectarian way, behaving in a sectarian way. That is the problem. We think we have to share everything in this country, to re-evaluate and rebalance things...