 A political assassination in July in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is yet another instance of the instability and chaos that the regime of President Felix Chesikedi has unleashed. What lies ahead for this country? The FIFA Women's World Cup continues in Australia and New Zealand and is quite well attended according to reports. What's been happening on the pitch and outside? We'll be looking at these stories in today's Daily D-Breathe, but as always, do hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. And on with the show. We go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, where opposition leader Sherubin Okende was assassinated a couple of weeks ago. Okende was an associate of Moise Katumbi, a former ally of the president, Felix Chesikedi. But now Katumbi might contrast against him in the national elections in December. Now, Chesikedi claimed to be a democratically elected president, but his approach has been anything but. And there are even doubts about the conduct of the December elections. We go to Kambale Musawili for more. Kambale, thank you so much for joining us. So it's been a couple of weeks since the assassination of Sherubin Okende and there's a lot of shock at that point of time. So could you maybe take us through what has happened since then, what have been, if any investigation has taken place, and the kind of responses that have come out? The death of Sherubin Okende, who was a member of parliament, was shocking to the entire Congolese people, especially how it happened. He was asked to come to the constitutional court to declare his assets. The court case was supposed to take place on the 13th. So he went on the 12th to try to extend it, ask the court to give him more time for that and asking for a court debt for the 14th. As he went to the court, he never came back home, right? And he was found dead on the 13th with bullets in his body. The police has gone through investigation, they have not clearly presented the cause of death. I mean, a body with bullets clearly was shot and killed. And there have been a witness's account about seeing him in the parking lot of the constitutional courts, also seeing his body guard leaving the car going inside, and then later seeing a truck full of people, some in military clothing, out in plain clothes, kidnapping him. These are allegations being presented by eyewitnesses, investigation has not continued. And the family and including the opposition in the Congo, they are not waiting for what devastation will lead, but who was Cherubero Kende? Cherubero Kende was a member of the political party called Ensemble, which is an opposition party led by a Congolese billionaire named Mois Gatumbi. So you can understand that it's mainly the political class, the political elite running the country with a political party. But they created a block in the opposition. They were first part of the majority in the country. They called it Pinyosake, the sacred union with the regime of Felixi Sekedi. But in last year, sometime at the end of the year, Ensemble, the political party broke away from the coalition. And the leader of the party Ensemble, Mois Gatumbi, decided, he announced that he's going to be a presidential candidate at the next election. Since that has happened, there's been attacked targeting these members. One of his members was arrested. They've claimed that he was allegedly, he had a gun that was not registered. And today, Cherubero Kende, who also left the majority coalition to join Mois Gatumbi in the opposition, has been funded. These are indications that the presidential election that is due at the end of this year is going to be more with a lot of violence. It's going to be more potentially more political assassination, hopefully that won't continue. But clearly, as days go by, we are really worried on how the current regime is literally behaving as the former regime of Joseph Cabela, which is quite astonishing, right? Because the president of the Congo claims, he's a Democrat, claims that he's a progressive on the left somehow. And yet, his regime has repressive methods that we've seen before, arbitrary arrests, political assassination, and abuse of civilians who are protesting. So we can only predict that either the election will not take place due to the unwillingness of the Congolese government to organize it, or that it will be more with a lot of violence at the end of this year of 2024, 2023. Kambali, it's very, it's striking that you say that this reminds me, it reminds you of the violence of the Joseph Cabela years, because at that time we saw so many murders, so many attacks on activists, a lot of horrors. But could you also tell us right now how people are responding in the sense of activists in the society, et cetera, how they're responding to the Shisekete regime and what it's trying to do? Specific for the case of Okende, it's really to compare it to what happened during the Joseph Cabela era. There was an activist, his name was Floriber Chebea. He was called into the police department a few years ago, and as he was called into the police department the next day he was found dead. So this political assassination has taken place in the past. But now for beyond the comparison that's being made about the death of Chebea, Okende with Floriber Chebea, the population in the Congo beyond the elections are tired of the suffering they are facing, the cost of living has increased tremendously. This past week in Kinshasa, there is an activity that started and this activity is called Jeux de la Francophonie. It's almost like the Olympic Games of the Francophonie. The Francophonie is a body of Francophone countries and these Francophone countries, just like the Commonwealth, host some type of games. I think the Commonwealth hosts similar type of changes and so on. So for the first time in the history of Francophonie, this started, was launched in the DRC. So many countries are participating in it. Something very fascinating happened during that time. While the president of the Congo was there, but not only that, while the foreign minister was having a speech at the commencement, at the beginning of the ceremony, while the minister of foreign affairs was having a speech, the people were chanting in the local language stating that they would like the value of the Congolese franc to actually decrease as it is paired to the dollar. One dollar today has increased to 2300 Congolese franc. In the Kabila era, I think around 2016, one dollar was about 900 Congolese franc. So the cost of living has increased tremendously. People have challenges with buying food, with paying rent, with paying electricity, but not only that, in the eastern part of the Congo, we have a town and this town is called Bunangana and the town of Bunangana since last year is no longer in the control of the Congolese government. It's being controlled by a rebel group called the M23. So the political instability, the security of the country, the cost of living, all of those things are actually making the Congolese people really angry. It's not that they had hoped that this government would do something different. Why I'm saying this is because the people of the Congo are clear that they did not elect the president of the Congo today, Felix Cissecchetti. He was announced as the winner of the election, he was presented as the winner. We have evidence today that there was a secret deal between the former president Joseph Cabela and Felix Cissecchetti, a deal to make sure that Joseph Cabela is not arrested or his assets are not frozen, while there will be a coalition between Felix Cissecchetti and Cabela to rule the country. So we know he did not win the election and this was documented in the Gen Afrique, Africa Confidential, even African intelligence around the secret deal signed in front of Egypt, Kenya and South Africa. Now we are moving toward the elections. What do the Congolese people want? The Congolese people want what they wanted in 1885, in 1960, in the 1990s and today. They want to have a say to who is going to lead them. They do not want outside interference. They want to choose their leader and elect them democratically. The only chance they had to elect a leader democratically, and it actually worked, was in 1960, when the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba as the first prime minister of the Congo. Since the assassination of Lumumba by the CIA, Belgium and local Congolese sacophants, Congolese have not been able to choose their leaders. And because they are not being able to choose their leaders and leaders are imposed, these leaders are coming up with neoliberal policies that affect the country tremendously. For example, getting large sum from the World Bank and IMF in terms of billions of dollars, which is not going to have the DRC. If you look at the numbers from the World Bank today with the funding that I have provided the DRC in the past four years, you cannot see the impact it actually has made. They have given Congo over $3 billion. There is no impact. The cost of living is increasing. So we know that this is not working. So the Congolese people will continue to fight until they can choose their leaders. But for the foreseeable future, the challenge is the image that the President of Congo presents to the world. He presents himself as the first democratically elected president of the Congo with peaceful transfer of power. That's an insult to the thousands of Congolese who died during the elections. It was not a peaceful transfer of power. We remember the Luc Kulula, the Rosichi Manga, these young Congolese who were shot and killed in the streets for the case of Luc Kulula, he was burned in his house alive. He died in his house refiring himself. These young people who died to see a democratic election to take place in 2018, it will not be fair to say that this was a peaceful transfer of power and also that it was a democratic election because we know it was rigged. But as Patrice Lumumba said in his last letter, the Congolese will not stop to fight until the last neocolonial agents of imperialists are out of the Congo. And that's what the Congolese people continue to do. And what they are calling for as they are fighting on the inside of the country, they hope that people on the outside of the Congo will join them in this struggle so that they can put pressure on the outside forces while Congolese are dealing with their local compradors. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kambale for I think giving us the larger picture of what is happening in the DRC right now especially with elections less than half a year away. Thank you so much. For our second story, we head to Australia and New Zealand where the FIFA Women's World Cup is going on. Now, there's been pretty good attendance in many of the matches, which is a positive sign and quite a few close contests, which is also great. Siddharthane, who's in Australia, brings us the latest from the pitch and outside. Siddharthane, thank you so much for joining us. So let's first take a look at what has been happening on the pitch. Quite a few interesting matches, you know, I think the hosts also have been in some interesting situations. So could you maybe first take us through what have been the key matches? Are they going on the lines of pretty much what was expected? Thanks for having me Prashant. Yeah, it's been really interesting as, you know, you were talking about a little bit the last time as well, 32 team tournaments end up in the last round of matches being, you know, quite interesting to watch from a neutral perspective, particularly. And FIFA added a little bit to that drama by sending out an email to the press core a day before saying, you know, in case there are multiple teams that are tied on points and all the other criteria, we'll have a draw of lots, like a coin toss to figure out who goes to the next round. So it was built up as, but from there on, I think, again, tournament football revealed itself. So the strong teams got stronger when there was a clear objective. They've also now spent a bit more time together. The players that is they're used to the kind of systems they want to play. I think one big, big one was Japan versus Spain. Again, both in their own ways, quite power, powerhouses in in in women's football, particularly, but they had an interesting game at the men's World Cup as well in Qatar. And and here it was kind of like a group deciding match. And and with less than a quarter of ball possession, for Shant, Japan ended up four nil winners in that game in a complete, it was a complete sort of tactical masterclass of the perfect game of organized sort of collective football that that you can possibly ask for from from a group of 11, 12, 13 players. So so in that sense, it was interesting to see also some of the Japanese people who are here covering the sport, talking about how different it is from what's happening in domestic politics, where there's a push towards like sort of more polarized kind of approach. The right is is push, you know, there's a sort of conversations around pacifism and those things are happening. Well, but as far as football is concerned, whether it's the men's team, who we were lucky to talk to also in Qatar, and they said they've been learning so much from from the women's sport, because they've actually won the World Cup back in 2011, been in the finals in 2015. So in that sense for Asian football, these are like the torchbearers. And and that's been really great to see that they are maintaining that competitiveness, because other than the Japanese, then the gaps are quite evident between players who are based in Europe and North America and teams which have more of those tend to emerge stronger in the end. So like England was six, six one up over China as we when we started recording. And some of the strong European teams doing well, France have emerged as another very strong contender and a couple of others, but it's quite open and it's going to be a really, really keenly contested round of 16 to come. So if you haven't gotten into the tournament yet, now is a great time to sort of jump on the bandwagon. Right, Siddharth, of course. And as usual, I think it's also for us interesting to take a look at some of the conversations happening outside the pitch as well. You know, tournaments are always a very good time to sort of talk about the larger politics of sport, which otherwise does not get talked about or covered so much. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, not just sport also Prashant, because one of the big conversations right now, of course, and daily debrief, I think is among probably the few of sort of international programming that has covered some of these issues, but whether it's the defamation case of Robert Smith or it's the indigenous voice to parliament. I mean, these are the big talking points in Australia as far as politics is concerned at the moment. And we've seen like now mention of the First Nations names of the old names for these places, Sydney, Gadigal, and all of that. So there's a lot of sort of gesture being made to the First Nations, the indigenous people in Australia. But in terms of how that will play out politically and socially, it's a quite interesting time to have those conversations. And I think some of that is happening also around this tournament because you've had, you know, it's out to an international audience. Those at least some lip service is being paid at the beginning of games and things like that. So it's important also, I think for people, I mean, we have a situation going on in India as well, where tribal communities are involved. So people also get a sense of the similarities that, you know, what different kinds of communities, minority communities around the world are facing. So that way it's been interesting. I mean, also to talk to some of the journalists around here. From a footballing sense, again, the diversity in the audience has been remarkable and it's kind of building on what we saw in Qatar. So well, very mixed, very diverse, lots of sort of age, a big age chunk from very young to quite senior people coming to watch the games and also more than a million people have now been to stadiums to watch the tournament. I mean, you have some 70 or 1000 seat of stadiums selling out when Australia are not even playing. So it kind of reflects also the interest that has emerged as the tournament has gone on and the finals already sold out, for example. So yeah, so it's going to be, again, a couple of interesting more weeks to come. And I think we'll have more updates soon. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Siddhant. I think we'll definitely come back in a few days, especially close to the round of 16 or once it starts to get a sense of some more sense of which are the key teams to watch out for, who are the surprises, etc. Thank you so much for talking to us. And very important that I guess Australia stayed on in the tournament because that would have been a real dampener. New Zealand are out as co-hosts, but at least Australia still being in the tournament keeps the kind of momentum going. So that's another good one. Thank you so much, then. And that's all we have time for in today's episode. Do keep watching. We'll be bringing you stories from across the world, across sectors, the struggles of people, the agenda of anti-imperialism. So many stories, but do hit that subscribe button as well, if you haven't already and see you tomorrow.