21.   It was the latest in a series of tense standoffs between villagers and soldiers patrolling towns where the Zapatistas enjoy support.

22.   Just hours before the court hearing was to begin, demonstrators who had spent the night guarding the garden were in a tense standoff with police.

23.   One is Bethlehem, where a tense standoff between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen occupying the Church of the Nativity continued Friday night.

24.   Palestinian gunmen are holed up in a tense standoff with Israeli forces in Bethlehem, on the site that Christians revere as the birthplace of Jesus.

25.   Pretending to acquiesce, she snatches his sidearm and, after some reflection during a tense standoff, orders him to strip and handcuffs him to a tree.

26.   Taken together, his comments reflected a significantly more nuanced approach to handling the tense standoff between the two nations, a shift the South Korean leader clearly welcomed.

27.   The coup at the Grand Hotel began with a tense standoff Sunday night between the Serb employees and the KLA representatives.

28.   The internecine warring made for some tense standoffs.

29.   Then came a tense standoff before Weaver surrendered days later.

30.   There had been a tense standoff between demonstrators and police blocking Kneza Milosa Street, in front of the Defense Ministry building still blasted from NATO bombs.