11.   But maybe the republic is safe.

12.   But it may be less significant than the old bread-and-butter issue that has helped politicians win elections and remain in office since the republic was young.

13.   But the impoverished republic has been reluctant to host U.S. troops.

14.   But the secessionist republic has been broken and subdued.

15.   But whether the republic will be poorer or richer when the task is done depends on whether the cutting and eliminating are accomplished with a bludgeon or a scalpel.

16.   For their part, the Chechens, whose republic has been devastated in the last year, have been weakened terribly.

17.   He said that his party accepted that the Bosnian Serb republic could not be independent, or even united with Yugoslavia, at least not for many years.

18.   He stressed that all former Soviet republics will be welcome to join.

19.   If this is what passes for professorial wisdom in our most reputable redoubts of higher learning, the republic is in more trouble than it dares imagine.

20.   Kurdish uprisings have been an almost permanent factor in Turkish life since the modern republic was founded three-quarters of a century ago.