With South Sudan continuing to face a number of acute historical challenges, the Pan-Africanist movement must move to develop campaigning and lobbying on the side of the ‘marginalised majority’ in South Sudan and Sudan alike, writes Explo Nani-Kofi.

The recent Paris meet was a grim victory celebration by the NATO powers who wanted non-European poodles on the bandwagon, writes M.K. Bhadrakumar.

A squadron of airmen with key skill sets, including air traffic control and civil engineering, is preparing for a mission to train air forces in Africa to deliver supplies and large numbers of troops into conflict zones. The New Jersey-based 818th Mobility Support Advisory Squadron was established in April and is expected to become operational later this year in support of U.S. Africa Command, according to Air Force officials.

China's fast-growing consumerism and lax policing of ivory laws are the latest threats to wild elephant populations, said an author of a recent report on endangered species. Esmond Martin and Lucy Vigne, authors of the report that was presented at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva in mid-August, visited ivory carving factories and stores in southern China in January.

This new report by Economics Research Foundation and GRAIN provides a detailed examination of the role of the Indian government and Indian companies engaged in overseas agricultural land acquisitions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Containing video documentation, this report reveals that a joint undercover investigation by BBC Newsnight and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has uncovered evidence that the Ethiopian government is using development aid as a tool for political oppression. Posing as tourists, the team of journalists travelled to the southern region of Ethiopia.

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 Berkman Center has released three new publications as part of their circumvention project. Over the past two years, the Center has carried out a number of research activities designed to improve our understanding of the knowledge, usage, and effectiveness of circumvention tools as a means to promote access to information online in repressive online environments.

There are many challenges and obstacles facing developing countries in moving their economies to more environmentally friendly paths, says this paper from the South Centre. 'On one hand this should not prevent the attempt to urgently incorporate environmental elements into economic development. On the other hand, the various obstacles should be identified and recognised and international cooperation measures should be taken to enable and support the sustainable development efforts.'

This report from the Economist Intelligence Unit claims that African countries south of the Sahara are poised to enjoy a surge in growth in their banking systems during this decade. The three main drivers in this development will be generally very high rates of economic growth, financial deepening to fulfil huge unmet needs for basic financial services and new technologies to provide them – particularly over mobile phones.

We call upon all students, student bodies, human rights groups and all concerned organisations and individuals to lobby for the urgent and unconditional release of Maxwell Dlamini (President of the Swaziland National Union of Students) and all political prisoners.

The developing world has, for the first time, outstripped richer economies in providing new investment in the renewable energy sector, according to a report. And research and development (R&D) funding from government sources, at US$5 billion in 2010, for the first time overtook corporate R&D investment, according to 'Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011', published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in July, reports

Over the past three years, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) carried out exploratory research in five countries from different continents on the internet’s role in accessing information about sex education, health, fighting sex discrimination and defining one’s own sexuality.Carried out in Brazil, India, Lebanon, South Africa & USA the research looks at how the internet plays host to critical information about sex education, health, fighting sex discrimination and defining one’s own sexuality. It debunks the commonly-held view that sexuality online is just about pornography.

After 30 years and over 20 million deaths in Africa alone, US researchers now report that early treatment of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that leads to AIDS cuts transmission of the disease by over 96 per cent. Unexpectedly announced by the US National Institutes of Health on 12 May after a six-year clinical trial, the discovery that anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) can make people living with HIV far less infectious means that humanity finally has the tools to reverse the global epidemic. But, says this article from African Renewal, having the technology to curb AIDS, however, is not the same as having the political will to do so.

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...

Race/Ethnicity publishes key information and insights about the challenges and opportunities presented by race and ethnicity in the 21st century, with particular attention to dynamics shaping the experiences of racially marginalized people and communities. We welcome contributions from advocates, activists, and practitioners of all kinds, as well as from researchers inside and outside the academy.

'The 7th session of UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee is commencing from 8 to 12 August 2011. Among the participants are delegations from La Via Campesina, who are fighting for an initiative towards an international convention of the rights of peasants.'

This video posted on Youtube provides a simple explanation of the US debt crisis and why it spells disaster for the global economy. What the world is facing, says the video, is complete global economic collapse, something that has never happened before. And it's not a matter of if it will happen, but when.

Blogger Scarlett Lion spent a weekend snapping photos of the same sex weddings that took place recently with the passing of New York’s Marriage Equality Act, an experience she describes as 'amazing'. You can view the pictures on her blog.

In assessing the chances of another financial crash, Richard Murphy, an adviser to the Tax Justice Network writes that there is a two-part economy in the world, the real one and the feral one, which exists beyond the limits of the real economy and is made up of the enormous financial balances that are only entries in computer ledgers. 'This feral economy represents the wealth quite deliberately extracted from the real economy by those who have exploited it over the last thirty years of neoliberal domination.'