Word: fractious
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...threat to the world's fast-diminishing rain forests has united the normally fractious environmental community. The organizations arrayed against this peril constitute a Who's Who of the environmental movement: the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Testifying before Congress, Bruce Rich, chairman of the Environmental Defense Fund's International Program, said none of these groups were "exaggerating when they say they fear that an environmental Frankenstein has been unleashed...
...challenge was not Yeltsin's first, but it was surely his strongest, and timed to coincide with a period of severe domestic disarray. As the economy worsens, the republics are growing more restive, the forces of order more demanding and the left more fractious. In the face of such pressure, Gorbachev's efforts to govern look increasingly feeble. Moreover, he has linked his fate to those who retain power but who most resist real change: Communist Party apparatchiks, industrial managers, army generals, KGB colonels...
...Saddam's nastiest henchmen to survive in power. If Iraq's Sunni Muslim ruling elite were to be ousted wholesale, no alternative government could easily take charge of the country's highly politicized military and secret police. Fear of these institutions is the strongest glue binding Iraq's fractious populace, including its long-oppressed Shi'ite Muslim majority and its rebellious northern Kurds. "When the Iraqis stop fighting us," says a senior Bush adviser, "they may turn to fighting each other." The advisers believe postwar stability in Iraq and the region is better served if the country's next ruler...
...order to win, Gantt needed a heavy turnout of blacks, who make up 19% of the state's electorate and normally vote Democratic. That he got. But Gantt also needed at least 40% of North Carolina's whites. There he fell short by five points. The fractious campaign produced a huge vote in white precincts and an overall total of 52% to 48% in Helms' favor. The margin, like the strategy, was almost identical to Helms' three previous victories...
That is unlikely to happen. The King's popularity is at an all-time high, primarily because he refuses to take a hard line against Saddam, whom Jordanians respect for standing up to the U.S. and Israel. Even Jordan's normally fractious trade unions have put their differences aside and pledged to take cuts in wages to support what they call Saddam's "just Arab cause." A highly placed Jordanian official warns that the longer the U.S. stays in the gulf, "the bigger hero Saddam Hussein will become." He says that despite Iraq's aggression, Jordanians feel that the preservation...