--Status and relative strength of factions within the Palestine Liberation Organization PLOO) and internal decision-making processes of these factions.
Mr. Abbas is trying to play to Fatah's relative strength, as the faction that can make gains through negotiation.
Mr. Koizumi should use his newly demonstrated political strength to bring faction leaders into line with his economic reforms rather than using his office to rekindle Japanese nationalism.
But the rally may have been most significant as a display of the liberal factions' strength in Egyptian politics.
Public outrage against the ruling focused on what many people see as the strength of illegal factions within the government and the lack of political will that obstructed an in-depth investigation into the murder.
A1 More Troops Sought for Kosovo NATO's senior commander, Gen . Wesley C. Clark said up to 1,800 additional troops needed to be dispatched quickly to show greater military strength against ethnic factions.
But that outcome is not certain, and some agents suggested Friday that the faction's strength and size had been overstated.
The many factions gaining strength in Syria's chaos — the Kurds gathering arms, the leaders of newly founded militias, the criminals, and the foreign jihadis — all have their own ends, and a unified nation may not be first among them.
The recent demonstrations marked a return to the peaceful origins of 2011's popular uprising; now largely obscured by an increasingly sectarian conflict and growing strength of hardline opposition factions.
In an effort to bolster its military strength before the combative ethnic factions of northern Kosovo, NATO's senior commander, Gen . Wesley K. Clark appealed to NATO countries today for as many as 1,800 additional troops and said they needed to be dispatched quickly.
