Have you tried how the batch download to sqlite fares in 0.20-3 ? I have made the database access sequential in this version as I suspect that concurrent access to the database might be causing for all those "database locked" errors.
The emphasis tags come from SSML are used so that espeak puts emphasis on important words, like street names or the turn commands. IMO it is reading the tag because it is somehow mangled - either the is a < missing or the <emphasis> opening tag is not where it should be. Does it happen for all turns or just from time to time ?