Unlike the Independent National Electoral Commission, which has published the results of the presidential election showing why it says Joseph Kabila won and for everyone to see and scrutinize, Etienne Tshisekedi has so far provided no proof to support his claim of an outright victory. Yet, the longtime opposition leader has said, once again, that he now considers himself president.

At the invitation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the European Union is deploying an Election Observation Mission for the Presidential and Legislative elections, scheduled for 28 November 2011. The EU EOM, composed of 147 observers, will assess pre-election preparations and campaign in all provinces of the DRC, as well as voting, counting, tabulation processes and complaint procedures.

The Congolese Minister of Finance, Matata Ponyo, and the Representative of the European Union in the DRC, Ambassador Richard Zink, signed an agreement on elections funding on Friday in Kinshasa, with the EU saying it will provide 47,5 million euros for the upcoming elections.

An impressive parade of the Congolese Armed Forces, the national police and civilians took place on Wednesday in Kinshasa, on the new Triumphal Boulevard, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s accession to national and internationally sovereignty.

The establishment of a single visa for all the member countries is one of the major objectives of the community, according to Raymond Tshibanda, the minister for international and regional cooperation of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Officials said the ministers believe that progress is being made toward easing the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and that reconciliation efforts between the government and various rebel groups were on the right track.

In its latest report on the situation in eastern Congo published on Monday, Human Rights Watch calls on the notoriously infamous rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) to investigate themselves. This is the most naïve recommendation, and there are many, included in this report.

In a rare intervention in the Assembly hall, the foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Alexis Mwamba, representing SADC, protested allowing Mr. Rajoelina to speak. "SADC would like to express its protest against the decision to invite Mr. Andry Rajoelina to take the floor at the general debate of our august assembly," he said.

Diplomatic activity aimed at ending the violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is intensifying. The United Nations mediator for eastern Congo, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, arrived Thursday in Kinshasa for talks with Congolese officials, while talks between the Congolese government and eastern rebels continued in Kenya.

The presence of FDLR soldiers - Rwandan Hutus who fled into Congo after the genocide and now control part of the illegal mineral trade in the east - is a pretext for Rwanda to attack the Kivus. The FDLR are also used by Laurent Nkunda as a justification for his "protection" of the Tutsi minority. As if defending a minority is an acceptable excuse for massacring other Congolese ethnic groups.