1.  Ahmed Karzai said his brother had hoped to convince the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, to abandon Kandahar and spare the city a bloody showdown.

2.  Several thousand people Saturday marked the fourth anniversary of the bloody showdown between President Boris Yeltsin and parliament with a mass rally in front of the Russian White House.

3.  The confrontation appeared to be hurtling toward a bloody showdown for the capital, Grozny.

4.  The crisis seemed to be hurtling toward a bloody showdown over the regional capital, Grozny.

5.  The crisis seemed to be hurtling toward a bloody showdown over the Chechen capital, Grozny, as Russian troops began to ring the city.

6.  The Indonesian government denied on Tuesday that it was fomenting unrest in East Timor even as a separatist rebel leader challenged Jakarta to a bloody showdown.

7.  Under international pressure, Ranariddh agreed to a formula in which he and his rival would share the premiership, setting the stage for the bloody showdown in July.

8.  He was speaking on the fourth day of a bloody showdown in the capital Bangui between mutineering soldiers and authorities in the country.