Former presidents Sukarno and Suharto were wary of promoting Islamic law in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country, even though Muslims make up the majority of Indonesia's 209.4 million citizens.
While the renewed fighting is troubling for a fragile, multi-ethnic country that has just begun to open up after decades of isolation, the unrest spells particular risk for Asian energy firms.
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Britain, which is the biggest aid donor to Myanmar, will also offer aid to support peacemaking in parts of the country torn by ethnic conflict and back responsible investment in the country, Cameron said.
Political analysts noted that the country's large ethnic-Chinese minority had largely swung to the opposition, opening up a split between this predominantly Muslim country's prosperous cities and its largely ethnic-Malay-populated rural areas.
Mr Karzai is from the Pushtun ethnic group, the country's largest, which has traditionally ruled the country.
UNITA. Second, that the largest ethnic group in the country cannot be excluded from government: some kind of power-sharing is necessary.
With its many local languages and ethnic groups, the country's unity is threatened by various separatist movements, especially in the provinces of Aceh and West Papua.
As if to show the people of multi-ethnic Kazakhstan that their country's leadership takes better care of them, some of the Kazakh press has shown fairly graphic images of dead ethnic-Uzbek children.
The government's aggression is partly prompted by its perception that the Tigers have been critically weakened in the multi-ethnic east of the country, since the rebellion in 2004 of their commander there, known as Karuna.
More generally, it will be important to try to take into account the fact that many of the neighboring countries have ethnic groups from their country represented in Afghanistan, and therefore will be concerned about their welfare.
Today, even though Native Americans are still the poorest of the poor, a recent study shows that we have increased our population rate and our per-capita income more than any other ethnic group in the country during the past decade.
Ms. Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for championing democracy, has been largely silent on the violence between rival religious and ethnic groups in the country, apart from saying rule of law would improve the environment.
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After weeks of hesitation, Macedonia's parliament endorsed constitutional amendments to give the country's ethnic-Albanian minority more rights.
Indonesia's military leader at the time, Suharto, saw the country's ethnic Chinese minority as a potential fifth column.
Botswana's biggest advantage over virtually every other African country is its ethnic homogeneity: it has no big tribal divisions.
He may well win, but the politicking will re-expose the country's ethnic divisions.
In Islamabad, Pakistan's foreign ministry repeated its insistence that any Afghan government must be representative of the country's ethnic makeup.
For the mohajirs, Islam, the motive force that had brought them to Pakistan, had become subsidiary to the country's ethnic divisions.
However a new law in Slovakia encourages use of Slovak in areas of the country where many ethnic minorities, particularly Hungarians, live.
Facebook was once available in China, but was blocked in July 2009 after riots in the Urumqi ethnic minority region of the country.
Mr. Najib's predecessors crafted the measures to give a leg up to the country's ethnic-Malay Muslims to reduce tensions with the wealthier ethnic-Chinese population.
Although many Kazakhs may not be sad to see the Russians go, some regret the departure of the country's ethnic Germans, who are considered industrious.
Apart from populist pledges similar to the ruling coalition's, it is promising to make government more accountable and to end some advantages for ethnic Malays in this multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority country.
The runner-up in the election was Harmony Centre, a centre-left party backed by most of the country's ethnic Russians, and also by ethnic Latvians fed up with the established parties.
However, Brahimi acknowledged that the delegations represented only part of Afghan society and urged the new interim leadership to integrate all of the country's ethnic and religious groups and also women.
The difficulties stem partly from the country's ethnic make-up.
Straw acknowledged there would be criticism and mistrust "of efforts to bring stability and prosperity to a country characterized by ethnic and tribal division, " comparing it to the recent instability in Afghanistan.
The Slav fear is that if a large number of refugees from Kosovo stay on in Macedonia, the country's ethnic balance will be upset and Macedonia will be dragged into the conflict.
Iraq, in contrast, is a country of warring ethnic and sectarian communities, and our military involvement there resulted from an ad hoc response to faulty intelligence in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks.
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It remained stable politically until March, when a group of soldiers toppled the government, saying it had not provided adequate support for them to fight ethnic Tuareg rebels in the country's largely desert north.
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