Samata waits anxiously as the chicken flutters in its death throes waiting to see how it falls.

BBC: Ghana witch camps: Widows' lives in exile

In its death throes, Eutopia has decided to smash the lights of liberty.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Mark Steyn on the Geert Wilders Trial

Few governments can survive such an economic tailspin, and many Indonesians believe the Suharto regime is in its death throes.

ECONOMIST: Indonesia

But these are probably just quirks of consensus, not its death throes.

ECONOMIST: Germany

He predicts the North's demise without acknowledging that such predictions have repeatedly failed, or even that its death throes might be painful indeed.

ECONOMIST: International relations

"Iridium tried to work with smaller partners and, in its death throes, assembled its own in-house sales force, " explains Andy Radlow, Globalstar USA's director of marketing.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Indeed, Ms Davidson hints at such a prospect in her speech today when she says "the much-derided and little-understood Barnett Formula is already in its death throes".

BBC: Line in the sand no more

He dismissed the debate about an educational system largely in its death throes by the time he was born as "pointless" and a "chain around the party's neck".

BBC: Tory MP: More grammar schools please

By stirring a dormant but incendiary nationalism, he succeeded in rallying support for himself in the late 1980's, at a time when Communism in the rest of Eastern Europe was in its death throes.

NYTIMES: Slobodan Milosevic