Then, of course, there is the lingering violence between the army and ethnic peoples in the mountainous areas.

FORBES: Asia's Week: Shadows on the Burmese Spring

In the Lords (from 11am) question time covers the position of the Kachin, Shan and Rohingya ethnic national peoples in Burma, assistance for people with dyslexia who're taking apprenticeship qualifications and UK support provided for the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium.

BBC: Week ahead

Relations between ethnic Russians and the indigenous peoples of Estonia and Latvia are improving.

ECONOMIST: Nordic security

Instead, in Soviet times it was promoted as one of the festivals that would unite the multi-ethnic and multi-religious peoples of the "red empire".

BBC: Father Christmas off air in Uzbekistan

The prime minister is quick to talk up threats to his country, whether from malcontents in the army or disgruntled ethnic groups among Ethiopia's mosaic of peoples.

ECONOMIST: Ethiopia's resilient prime minister

Clinton worked through NATO to protect the independence of Bosnia and the autonomy of Kosovo from a Serbia bent upon reestablishing its own version of hegemony over peoples that had suffered centuries of ethnic conflict under the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

NPR: 'Folly of Empire' Offers Critique of U.S. Imperialism

Turning to fears that Kosovo will become a purely ethnic Albanian state, he pointed to the various ethnic groups among the US troops and said they should be an example of how different peoples could live together.

BBC: News Online

Russia is, perhaps, sui generis, because of its immense size and ethnic diversity, the exceptional brutality of its history, and the suffocating uniformity forced on its various peoples by communists and tsars.

ECONOMIST: Devolution can be salvation