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...

An op-ed piece in The Citizen notes that Saturday’s sinking of a ferryboat off the coast of Unguja Island with the loss of almost 200 lives brings to the fore a very pertinent question: were any lessons learnt from the May 21, 1996 MV Bukoba disaster in Lake Victoria in which close to 1,000 people died? It is hard not to draw comparisons between the two incidents given that factors behind the accidents bear an uncanny resemblance.

Africa Today spoke with Professor Lako Tongun on the independence of the Republic of South Sudan. Professor Tongun was in attendance during the celebrations in Juba, South Sudan on July 11, 2011.

The rape of girls and women remains a major concern in South Africa, and the health care sector needs to be better equipped to collect evidence to prove sexual violation to help secure the conviction of perpetrators by the courts. The Foundation for Professional Development, a project of the South African Medical Association, is trying to improve how rape survivors are treated. It’s currently training health care workers to counsel victims of rape and to collect forensic evidence to help survivors build strong legal cases should they want the justice system involved.

Thomas C. Mountain, writing on counterpunch.org, reports that the recently released, and long awaited, Wikileaks Files on Ethiopia expose the lies used to justify UN 'inSecurity' Council Sanctions in force against Eritrea.

As of September 1, the Guantánamo Public Memory Project will be coordinated from the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, steered by a leadership committee of partners including the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

Women are our best hope for the continent, says Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah in her introduction to The Africa Report's list of the 50 women shaping Africa. Porgress has been slow, but many women are showing the art of the possible, inspiring a new generation to take control of their destiny.

INTERPOL has issued Red Notices for Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif Al-islam Gaddafi and former director of military intelligence Abdullah Al-Senussi after the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, requested the world police body to issue internationally wanted persons notices against the Libyan nationals for alleged crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution.

Bernard Baha of the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute points out in the paper 'The Politics of Investment in Large Scale Agricultural Ventures' that Tanzania has always been a country in the spotlight concerning cases of land grabbing for various uses. In the recent past there has been a lot of information in both print and electronic media about land being taken for various investment purposes. Little is known about these deals between the government and foreign investment companies eyeing Tanzania as a destination for agricultural investment.

A civil society organisation in Nigeria has described the performance of the government under President Goodluck Jonathan as inept. The Coalition against Corrupt leaders, a civil society monitoring the performances of government officials says the first 100 days of Jonathan's administration falls short of average expectation.

A number of human rights organisations have condemned the arbitrary use of agression towards and detention of, youths who were involved in the demonstrations at Independence Square in Luanda on September 3 – as well journalists who were covering the event.

September 9-13 mark the 40th anniversary of the Attica Rebellion. This massive prison takeover by hundreds of inmates and the callous repression and murders by the state of New York are part of a unique moment in US history. The legacy of Attica and the fight for human rights is carried on in the prisons of Georgia, Ohio, California and wherever people are caged for years on end.

The Refugee Law Project, under its video advocacy programme, has produced documentaries to show the work being done at RLP, as well as highlight the plight of forced migrants in Uganda. Research looked into the nature and dynamics of land ownership, land access, and land use as well as how political perceptions and considerations factored as important elements in the land conflicts and how the question of investment played out in the context of ongoing conflicts associated with land in Amuru district.

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Citing the long history of the presence of peoples from the Indian sub-continent in Africa, the National Museums of Kenya sponsored, in 2000, a special exhibit on the 'Asian African Heritage.' This special issue of Research in African Literatures follows the lead of this exhibition by bringing together new essays by some of the leading scholars who have written on Asian African literatures in East and South Africa. The articles engage both with writers who are now considered canonical, such as M.G. Vassanji from Tanzania and Ahmed Essop from South Africa, as well as newer voices that have emerged over the past decade.

This year’s International Literacy Day, celebrated world-wide on 8 September, will focus on the link between literacy and peace. During a ceremony in New Delhi, India, UNESCO will award the international Confucius and King Sejong literacy prizes to projects in Burundi, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States of America. South and West Asia account for more than half (51,8%) the world’s adult illiterate population, ahead of sub-Saharan Africa (21,4%), East Asia and the Pacific (12,8%), the Arab States (7,6%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4,6%), North America, Europe and Central Asia (2%).

Several leading human rights activists are urging South African President Jacob Zuma to reconsider his plan to appoint a controversial pastor to lead the country's judicial system. Three women Nobel laureates say that Zuma's selection, Mogoeng Mogoeng, would weaken women's rights if appointed as chief justice of the Constitutional Court.

Hundreds of placard-carrying women, from about 10 Gbaramatu communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, laid siege to the project site of Chevron Nigeria Limited at Chanomi Creek and disrupted the laying of pipelines for the multi-billon dollars Escravos Gas to Liquid project.

Human Rights Watch reports that black Libyans and African migrants are being held on suspicion of having fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi, by the de facto authorities, the National Transitional Council (NTC), solely on account of their skin colour. The migrants are being held in ad hoc places of detention across Tripoli, and it remains unclear how or if the NTC plans to review each case to determine whether there is evidence of criminal activity or not.

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