1.   In view of the emergence of an unlikely alliance between reform-minded bureaucrats and provincial noblemen, the government abandoned the idea of running the countryside autocratically.

2.   And later that month, supporters of Yeltsin in Parliament struck an unlikely alliance with Communists to strip Rokhlin of his post as chairman of the defense committee.

3.   And it has formed an unlikely alliance with the liberal leaning American Civil Liberites Union to push for open hearings on the Waco and Weaver incidents.

4.   As the Senate prepares for hearings Thursday on whether to restrict cloning, the fight against the research is creating some unlikely alliances on Capitol Hill.

5.   A nation of budding constitutional scholars can, without prompting, discern when equal protection concerns appear to be creating unlikely alliances, and so forth.

6.   But the two form an unlikely alliance when a black man is killed.

7.   But the years of democracy have been marked by a cavalcade of prime ministers, most of them the product of unlikely alliances cobbled together only to fall apart.

8.   But the bills face resistance from an unlikely alliance of high-technology companies, grass-roots immigrant groups, civil-liberties organizations and conservative think tanks.

9.   But the years of democracy have been marked by a cavalcade of elected governments, most of them the product of unlikely alliances cobbled together only to fall apart.

10.   Gingrich, having forged an unlikely alliance with Mayor Marion Barry, wants to change all that.