In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

The New Significance is a web magazine exploring revolutionary forces for change and autonomy in the 21st Century.

An Israeli mission is being sent to five countries to do pro-Israeli propaganda work at campuses, says this statement on the blog 'The mission has been briefed and trained by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. Furthermore, they have received funding from the Ben-Gurion University and Weizmann Institute of Science student unions. The mission’s main focus is South Africa in general and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) specifically - this is because of South Africa’s critical position on Israel and the growing support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel that it is coming from South Africa.'

At least three Libyan opposition fighters have been killed in clashes near the northern town of Zlitan, just 160km from Tripoli, the capital, as government troops fought rebel forces for control of the town. Several other opposition forces were injured in the fighting on Sunday, Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons reported, as troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi continued an assault against anti-government fighters. Opposition forces were also under attack in the newly captured town of Bir al-Ghanam, a strategic location in western Libya 85km from Tripoli, where Gaddafi forces launched an offensive to regain control of the town.

The Somali army has declared Mogadishu a 'free territory' after fighters from the radical al-Shabaab Islamist group fled the capital.Deputy army commander Gen Abdikarim Yusuf Aden confirmed the fundamentalist group's dramatic pull-out Sunday morning, adding that it had been as a result of military pressure from government forces and its allies, including AU peacekeepers. Most of the retreating al-Shabaab combatants headed towards Lower Shabelle and Middle Shabelle regions, respectively south and north of Mogadishu, in what they claimed was a 'change in tactic'.

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Swaziland’s cash-strapped university failed to re-open for the new academic year, officials said, adding it would remain closed indefinitely. 'The registration process is suspended, and the commencement of the first semester lectures is postponed...to a date yet to be determined,' University of Swaziland Registrar Sipho Vilakati said in a statement.

In this article, a Congolese volunteer with People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) describes what it is like to live in South Africa. 'Life is tough here. Firstly, there is a lot of homophobia in the Congolese community in South Africa. When I first arrived, I lived with my cousin. When he found out from my family in Congo that I was gay, he kicked me out on the street. My mother ensured that no other family member in South Africa took me in after that. Since then I have moved around a lot, living with different Congolese people, but the story is always the same: once they detect that I am gay, they kick me out.'

Blog Black Looks reports on 'Blood in the Mobile', a documentary which traces the mobile phone to it’s source in the eastern DRC. The mineral cassiterite is mined in deep holes by men and boys and is then transported by foot through dense wet forests for two days before reaching the nearest town.

With elections on the horizon, Ghana’s politics have entered the season of allegations - and counter-allegations. First, it was the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) which claimed it had in its possession a tape of the deputy minister of information, Baba Jamal, promising bribes to a group of journalists if they backed the government with positive stories. Before this could blow over, the propaganda secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Richard Quarshigah, flung out a cracker: that the NPP was planning to unleash a group of young girls to bait NDC officials in sleaze stings.

An Italian coast guard patrol rescued almost 400 people aboard a boat that had left Libya six days before and was lost for more than 36 hours off the coast of Lampedusa. Arriving in Lampedusa, migrants declared tragic deaths had occured from hunger and fatigue during the voyage and dozens of bodies were thrown over board.

In this months newsletter Daniel Large provides commentary on relations between China and South Sudan, as well as the potential role for China to play in the newly independent state. In our second commentary piece, Peter Bosshard provides insight into the long-term impact of China's Three Gorges Dam and the lessons they offer Africa as the number of large-scale hydro-power projects on the continent continues to increase. Translations of the two commentaries are also provided in our continuing Chinese series. The July edition is available .

The 7th conference of 'The Revival of Panafricanism Forum' was held on Saturday, 16 July 2011. The topic of the conference was 'Panafricanism: A Viable Ideology to Address Africa’s Rape Redux/Euro-American 21st Century Neo-Colonial Re-Conquest and Scramble for Africa.' The speakers were Dr. Molefi Kete Asante (keynote), Peter Bailey, Maurice Carney, and Chioma Oruh. Videos of the conference are posted on Youtube:
- (Part 1)
- (Dr. Molefi Asante, keynote speaker)
- (Closing remarks and comments).

More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers. 'Most say they left their country [to avoid] a prolonged military conscription, but they also say they want to join their families on the road,' Moses Okello, UNHCR’s representative in Ethiopia, told IRIN. Ethiopia hosts at least 61,000 Eritrean refugees.

South Africa's preparations to host the next major round of climate talks have met with scepticism from activists critical of what they say is the country's lack of leadership on environmental issues. The high-level meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for 28 November to 9 December in the eastern port city of Durban, is seen as the last chance to renew the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement with binding targets for cutting greenhouse gases. But environmentalists have voiced concern that South African organisers are not doing enough to lay the groundwork for an ambitious conference that will make hard commitments on climate change and raise the cash to achieve them.

The promotion of two Côte d’Ivoire military commanders against whom there are serious allegations of involvement in grave crimes raises concerns about President Alassane Ouattara’s commitment to end impunity and ensure justice for victims, Human Rights Watch has said. On 3 August 2011, President Ouattara signed a promotion making Chérif Ousmane the second-in-command for presidential security (Groupe de sécurité de la présidence de la République). During the final battle for Abidjan, Ousmane was the head of the Republican Forces operations in Yopougon neighborhood, where scores of perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo were executed extrajudicially.

Malawi’s leading economic analysts say government’s domestic borrowing and interest rates are set to rise following the suspension and withholding of aid to Malawi by some of the country’s donors. The analysts, particularly those from Nico Asset Managers Limited and National Bank of Malawi (NBM), have also warned that the country’s economy - once a model of success less than two years ago - is on its way to a major slowdown as businesses pant under the weight of a hostile macroeconomic environment that denies them even the most basic of survival kits such as forex, fuel, water and electricity.

Chad seems a nightmare location for business - unless, that is, you are Papa Madiaw Ndiaye, 45, or Patrice Backer, 44, of Advanced Finance & Investment Group, a private-equity fund-management company in Dakar, Senegal, that has so far invested about $72 million in African financial institutions, agriculture and mining. 'It's like low-hanging fruit,' says Ndiaye, describing the investment climate in Africa. 'There is no competition. If you know what you're doing, it is a bonanza.' Such bonanzas - opportunities in troubled places with huge needs - are increasingly being sought out by a fast-growing group: Africans who have returned home after years of living, working and studying in the West, reports Time business magazine.

The Front to Defend Egyptian Protesters, which includes 34 human rights organisations and a number of volunteer lawyers, has welcomed the initiative taken by many activists and political powers to help in representing the civil plaintiffs in the case of the ousted president Hosny Mubarak, his sons, his interior minister, and some figures of the former police apparatus. The initiative comes to ease the burden carried by the Front since establishment in April 2008, especially with the growing pattern of cases it is competent with since the aftermath of January 25th revolution.

Newspapers in Malawi used to be exempt from sales tax. But the finance minister has announced they would start attracting the standard 16.5 per cent VAT. For a press that's already over-reliant on state advertising, the predicted drop in sales - and corresponding need to bring in even more government ad spend – is very bad news for free media, says this article on