Apple of discord

He has determined to enter the cabinet surrounded with creatures only, and, as to the Parliament, to trust to his dexterity and strength in throwing the apple of discord, occasions for doing which will, he imagines, soon and frequently occur.

He [Pope Pius VII] had hardly regained Rome when a domestic incident in the Bonaparte family became the immediate cause of that struggle between Pope and Emperor which only ended with the downfall of Napoleon's power. This apple of discord was the outraged honour of a Protestant girl, which the Holy Father maintained in the face of her angered Imperial brother-in-law.

The apportionment of U.S. military assistance to Turkey and Greece has become an apple of discord almost as bitterly disputed by the recipients as the one Aphrodite received from Paris, which touched off the Trojan Wars.

As in the old days when the tribes were fighting each other over hunting grounds, territories and agricultural land, today DRC [the Democratic Republic of the Congo] is prone to many internal conflicts. Especially in the eastern part of the country today's apples of discord appear to be the much-coveted minerals such as gold, diamonds, coltan, and uranium.