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.

Sometimes when a paper produces a defamatory piece, an apology will be published on page two in the next edition along with the day's news. In Rwanda, it would appear, a paper will use an entire edition to apologise - if the insults were directed at the president. The latest issue of Ishema, at left, is perhaps a sign of the times for Rwanda's press. The vernacular bimonthly had recently published an opinion piece that claimed President Kagame was a sociopath. The paper fell over backward in its attempts to apologise.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, plans to implement a cashless banking policy in June 2012. Bank representatives say the policy will enhance convenience and savings for Nigerians and the government, as well as elevate the economy to be more competitive internationally. But many Nigerians who have had negative experiences with ATMs say the country isn’t ready to go cashless, especially as the majority of the population doesn’t yet use banks.

Tanzania will no longer become a victim of the new legislation that classifies it as a source of conflict mining in Africa, following the US government' pledge to ease the restrictions. The law known as 'Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act' is aimed at improving transparency and accountability in the supply of minerals coming from the conflict zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Commissioner of Minerals in the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Dr Peter Kafumu, told the 'Daily News' in an exclusive interview in Dar es Salaam on Thursday that the decision was reached recently following a special request by the government.

At every stop along the campaign trail, Edith Kabbang Walla, 45, popularly known here as Kah Walla, is generating excitement among women nationwide. Walla is the only female candidate running for president in Cameroon’s October elections. 'The interest of women in politics has been aroused, but now we want their active participation,' Walla says during a recent visit to Bamenda, a city in northwestern Cameroon. Tracing women’s political participation in Cameroon, Walla says that women were the first group to hold a public demonstration against colonizers in the fight for Cameroon’s independence.

Stakeholder Democracy Network produces a monthly news and analysis bulletin that is sent out via email. The August 2011 newsletter includes the following:
- Niger Delta Development Commission to be probed
- New Electoral Commission State RECs nominated
- Petroleum Industry Bill Re-emerges
- USIP Report on the Niger Delta.

Graffiti is suddenly all over Cairo - on schools, on telephone exchange boxes, on empty walls and corrugated fencing around building sites, reports the New Yorker magazine. 'Daubs of slogans, finely rendered panoramas of Tahrir Square, and, increasingly, the kind of biting satire and subversion...' There's a great gallery of the graffiti at the top of this article, with 25 scrollable images.

Swaziland's pro-democracy activists have threatened to march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against SA’s R2,4bn conditional rescue package for the kingdom. Swaziland has been hit with protests this year after its government froze public sector salaries and cut social services. Protesters have accused King Mswati of looting state coffers to finance his extravagant lifestyle. The Swaziland Solidarity Network, which represents a consortium of pro-democracy movements in the kingdom, said it would organise protests at the Union Buildings and around SA to voice displeasure at the loan and in support of their demand that King Mswati lift the ban on political parties, in place since 1973.

The Sowetan newspaper apologised to City Press editor Ferial Haffajee on Thursday (04 August) for publishing an insulting column. 'In his latest column, [Eric] Miyeni crossed the line between robust debate and the condonation of violence,' said Sowetan and Sunday World general manager Justice Malala and Avusa editor-in-chief Mondli Makhanya in a statement on page 15. Miyeni's column, "Haffajee does it for white masters", appeared in the daily on Monday. He wrote that 'in the 80s she'd [Haffajee] probably have had a burning tyre around her neck'. City Press last week reported about African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema's trust, which he allegedly uses to bankroll his lavish lifestyle.

The four armed robbers who gang raped her may be serving time for their crimes, but six years later justice has turned out to be a myth for Mildred Mapingure. 'I was silently praying I was not pregnant,' Mapingure told IPS from her rural home in Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe. It is illegal to terminate a pregnancy in Zimbabwe unless the ‘pregnancy endangers the life of the mother and/or is a result of unlawful penetration (rape)’, according to the Termination of Pregnancy Act. And abortion is only allowed in the first trimester. When Mapingure realised the inevitable had happened two months after being raped, prosecutors rushed the application for a termination of pregnancy order through the Chinhoyi regional magistrate’s court in Mashonaland West. But long court delays resulted in the order being granted when she was eight months pregnant. Mapingure had no option but to give birth.