31.   The economic bloc also is about to expand into eastern Europe.

32.   The European bloc has been unable to agree on a head for the bank since January, when Frenchman Jacques Delarosiere stepped down.

33.   The Solidarity bloc has been in opposition for the past four years, while the Democratic Left Alliance of ex-communists ran the country.

34.   They concluded that global trade blocs were inevitable.

35.   Those voting blocs are key constituencies in New York.

36.   Today the bloc is a pillar of democracy and integration on a historically volatile and divided continent.

37.   And Cuban and Latin American diplomats here have mostly written off suggestions of that a new communist bloc is in the making.

38.   The bloc now is in the process of being established, and will have its headquarters in Arusha, in northern Tanzania.