Before that - or any other scenario - can occur intense battles will have to be fought all around this energized and fractious nation.

Some critics say he is offering his fractious nation more freedom than it can handle - something his defense minister, Juwono Sudarsono, calls "over democracy."

None of the candidates, though, seem the least bit interested in even addressing how they, or their party, might actually govern the "whole people" of a fractious nation.

He was confronted by an economically weak and fractious nation.

Recently inaugurated for a fourth term, but greatly aged by twelve years of governing a fractious nation through the Depression and the war, Roosevelt was in poor health.

Consolidating his new Government's power over this fractious nation of 840 million people is proving to be much more difficult.

Still, Mr. Carson's scrubbed Midwestern presence was so appealing that he succeeded in unifying a fractious nation.

LAST week, voters in Canada rejected a far-reaching package of constitutional reforms aimed at keeping their fractious nation unified.

The winners will form Iraq's first full-term government since the war began, and face the task of unifying an increasingly fractious and violent nation.

President Karzai admitted to serious practical problems in governing his fractious nation but insisted his political support was solid.