41.   A government negotiator expresses hope that the tense standoff will soon be over.

42.   A government negotiator expressed hope that the tense standoff would soon be over.

43.   A tense standoff followed an attempt by French soldiers Saturday to retake an observation post after a dawn raid by Serbs.

44.   A South Korean naval ship collided with a North Korean patrol boat Wednesday during a tense armed standoff in the Yellow Sea, the Defense Ministry said.

45.   A tense standoff continued in Shali east of Grozny, a town besieged by Russian troops who demand that rebel militants in Shali lay down their arms.

46.   A tense standoff emerged when a United Nations vehicle that tried to take away a badly beaten man to a hospital was blocked by police trucks.

47.   A tense standoff ended when Wasmosy offered Oviedo the defense ministry if he retired from the army.

48.   A tense standoff ensued with white-clad Palestinian medical workers forming a human buffer between police and the stone-throwers in a bid to prevent additional clashes.

49.   A tense standoff that threatens the new cease-fire in Chechnya continued Saturday, but there were no reports of overnight fighting or fresh clashes in the rebel republic.

50.   A tense standoff was reported in this Volga River city after Muslim students seized a building used in pre-Soviet times as an Islamic college.