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...

According to the International Committee for the Development of Peoples (CISP), an estimated 10,961 Congolese were expelled from Angola in the month of May alone, 7,178 of whom have arrived in Kasai Occidental Province. The CISP figures have been validated by DRC’s General Department of Migration. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 80,000 were expelled from Angola to DRC between January 2010 and March 2011. The expulsions are not a new phenomenon. From 2003 to 2009, 140,000 Congolese were deported from Angola, according to OCHA.

'The chances of a climate change deal in COP17 that will actually seal a deal that will do something about the problem of rising global greenhouse gas emission are becoming increasingly remote by the day. Why? It seems that vested high-carbon emission interests are capturing the process. In effect, those who financially benefit from high carbon emissions, such as energy companies, are involved in the actual negotiations to reduce emissions. This is only too evident in the South African negotiating team, where both petrochemicals giant Sasol and national electricity utility Eskom are official representatives.'

Senegal is to create a new vice-president position. The move is seen as a means by President Abdoulaye Wade to maintain his grip on power. Cabinet has approved a proposal to create the position of a vice-president who will be a running mate for the president in next year's election. Observers see this as a means for the Senegalese President, 84, to maintain his grip on power while preparing grounds for a possible succession. The proposed plan has to be approved by the country's national assembly.

The top UN human rights body declared on Friday (17 June) there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation, a vote Western countries called historic but Islamic states firmly rejected. The controversial resolution marked the first time that the Human Rights Council recognised the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, diplomats said.

The Okavango delta in Botswana has suffered 'catastrophic' species loss over the past 15 years, researchers have announced, in the latest sign of a growing crisis for wildlife in Africa. Some wild animal populations in the delta, one of the wonders of the natural world, have shrunk by up to 90 per cent and are facing local extinction, according to the most comprehensive aerial survey yet undertaken there.

In Mugunga, about 12km from Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), communities of Bambuti have been eking out a living at the edge of the city. The Bambuti are believed to be among Central Africa's oldest inhabitants, surviving from hunting and gathering. Among those living in Mugunga, some fled the war in eastern DRC in 2005 and others were evicted from their ancestral homes in Virunga National Park, home to DRC’s mountain gorillas.

At the climate talks in Bonn in the past fortnight, the deadlock over the Kyoto Protocol continued, with a real prospect that the global climate regime will unravel, writes Martin Khor in this article. '...both the climate situation and the prospects for the global climate regime have become more grim...Most significantly, the Bonn meetings saw the continuation of the deadlock on the future of the Kyoto Protocol (KP), the legally binding regime that commits developed countries to cut their emissions by certain percentages.'

Safaricom subscribers can search for and reconnect with their loved ones using their mobile phone via an application provided by Ericsson and Refugees United. The system enables refugees to use mobile phones to register themselves, search for loved ones, and subsequently reconnect via an anonymous database.

SABMiller Plc (SAB), the world’s second-biggest brewer by volume, has denied allegations that it dodged taxes in some African countries, including Tanzania, and said it’s prepared to discuss the matter with authorities. Officials from South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Mauritius are to meet later this month to discuss tax payments made by the London-based SABMiller, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Logan Wort of the African Tax Administration Forum. The meeting will be held on 28 June in Cape Town in the wake of a report by ActionAid, a UK non-profit group, which challenged the way the brewer paid taxes in those countries, the newspaper said.

The Institute for Palestine Studies’ Congressional Monitor project, launched in 2006, tracks every legislative initiative introduced in the US Congress that mentions Palestine or Israel or has bearing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Congressional Monitor Database contains all relevant legislation from the 107th through the 110th Congress (2001-2008) and will be updated on an ongoing basis to include legislation from before 2001 and after 2008. It includes key information such as legislation number, sponsor, party and state represented, number of cosponsors, brief summary, related measures (if any), and final status of the measure.

Almost 1,000 suspected cases of chikungunya, a mosquito-borne viral disease that causes fever and severe joint pain, have been recorded in the Republic of Congo's capital over the past two weeks. The disease's symptoms include muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash, and are similar to those of dengue fever. There is no known cure; treatment consists of relieving the symptoms.

The website is a campaign to make ecocide - the destruction, damage or loss of ecosystems - a crime. 'You can help us close the door to the ecocide and open a new one to a clean green world. The more of us that stand up and call for ecocide to be made a crime the sooner our world will change for the better.' This involves demanding that ecocide be made a criminal offence, that
ecocide be made the 5th UN Crime Against Peace and that ecocide be eradicated.

Somalia's prime minister says he has resigned, following an agreement between the president and parliament to remove him from office. Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo had initially refused to step down, but will now go 'in the interest of the Somali people'. His removal was part of a UN-backed deal that extends the mandates of the president, the speaker and deputies to August 2012.

The latest in the South African Broadcasting Corporation's fight against the BCCSA ruling on unfair reporting in favour of the Mail & Guardian has seen Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) warning that the issue could pose a serious threat to media freedom in South Africa. MMA has added its voice to the call for action against the broadcaster in the face of a damning Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) ruling on unfair reporting. Earlier this year, the BCCSA ruled the SABC had contravened the Broadcast Code of Conduct by making unsubstantiated claims of alleged corruption against the M&G, as well as ordering the state broadcaster to issue an apology.

Successive poor rains coupled with rising food and fuel prices are leading to a worsening food security situation with alarming levels of acute malnutrition being recorded in drought affected parts of Kenya, mainly in the north of the country, say experts. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2011 is the driest period in the eastern Horn of Africa since 1995 'with no likelihood of improvement until early 2012'.

Nato is using information gleaned from Twitter to help analysts judge which sites could be targeted by commanders for bombing and missile strikes in Libya. Potentially relevant tweets are fed into an intelligence pool then filtered for relevance and authenticity, and are never passed on without proper corroboration. However, without 'boots on the ground' to guide commanders, officials admit that Twitter is now part of the overall 'intelligence picture'.

Climate campaigners have raised the alarm at the direction of the UN climate negotiations as the latest round of talks came to an end in Germany last week. Speaking after the talks closed on Friday, Dr. Sivan Kartha of the Stockholm Environment Institute outlined the current 'gap' between emission reduction pledges and possible 'safe limits' of emissions of global-warming causing gases. 'In the race to stop climate change which will destroy homes, crops, and entire lives across the world, it is developing countries that are first out of the blocks. It is developing countries that have made pledges that add up with the science. Developed countries seem to be skulking away, trying to avoid picking up the tab for the pollution they've caused,' Chair of the panel, Asad Rehman, Head of International Climate at UK Friends of the Earth said.

Zimbabwe has vowed to defy moves for international monitoring of diamond sales from its disputed Marange fields, at a meeting of the global 'blood diamond' watchdog, state media reported. Mines minister Obert Mpofu said the Southern African nation must be allowed to export gems without any monitoring, insisting Zimbabwe has met the minimum requirements of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which seeks to prevent diamond sales from financing conflicts. The Marange fields, touted as Africa's richest diamond find of the decade, have been at the centre of a years-long controversy over reported abuses by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's military.

Reports from the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane indicate that acute hunger is worsening in several districts. Families have resorted to eating wild fruits and roots due to irregular rains and wild animals destroying the little production in the area. Though there are no reports of famine-related deaths, state television, TVM, has reported that if measures are not quickly taken, the situation will become catastrophic.