What exactly did Kinshasa hand itself on Saturday?
The power to legislate alone for the length of the parliamentary recess. Senators voted the enabling bill in second reading on 25 July at the Palais du Peuple, after the National Assembly passed it the day before, and the text has gone to Félix Tshisekedi for promulgation. It covers six matters of national interest, among them the extension of the state of siege in Ituri and North Kivu, several financing agreements, and, the piece that ate most of the debate, the creation of a legal framework for the carbon market. Justice Minister Guillaume Ngefa argued the DRC cannot host the world's second largest tropical forest massif and keep monetising it without statute, citing legal insecurity and lost revenue. Senate president Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde promised the chamber would stay "très vigilante" on how the power is used. For anyone holding forest concessions or timber offtake in the Congo Basin, the rules for carbon rights are now going to be written by ordinance, in August, without a plenary.
And the health emergency underneath all that?
Deaths in the Bundibugyo-virus outbreak have passed a thousand: 1,035 recorded, of which 1,033 in the DRC, against 2,536 confirmed Congolese cases. The epicentre is Ituri, with spread into North and South Kivu, the same provinces the state of siege extension covers. Money is the bottleneck. Africa CDC and the WHO put the requirement at $1.4bn, up from an earlier $518m, and as of late June only 13% of $910m in pledges had actually been released. The African Development Bank has approved a $13m grant, $11m of it for the DRC. UNDP's modelling of a contained outbreak still costs the DRC $1bn of GDP and 55,000 jobs, with regional spillover trimming Angola by about $440m and Zambia by 0.41%.
Who walked away from Red Sea cover?
The marine war underwriters. Top Lloyd's of London war risk syndicates have told brokers they will stop writing war cover for Saudi-linked cargoes in the Red Sea following Houthi attacks on two Saudi tankers, with some preparing to cancel policies already in force. The exclusion attaches to the nationality of the ship and cargo interest rather than to a routing, which is what makes it awkward: a Jubail or Yanbu parcel becomes uninsurable on paper while an identical cargo from Fujairah does not. The same week's traffic data tells the story from the other end. The escape lane opened off Oman on 20 June carried 167 ships in nineteen days, then four since 9 July, and across 2,143 Hormuz crossings more ships left the Gulf than entered. Brent's last print was $96.78, up 6.3% on the prior session, and Russian naphtha bound for Asia has been observed diverting in the Mediterranean to sail around Africa instead.
Is demand cracking or is that a story people tell?
There is a number now. IEA data has global crude demand falling almost 5% in the second quarter of 2026 as prices bit, and the refined side is doing the real damage: US diesel is trading around $220 to $240 per barrel. Freight is not confirming any collapse. The Baltic Dry index climbed 18 points to 2,743 on Friday, a one-week high, with capesizes recovering through the week from a soft opening.
Anything in fertilizer that moved?
Washington's new tariff schedule on Canada leaves fertilizers out, which keeps potash and nitrogen flowing south of the border on unchanged economics, per the exclusion list. Two smaller builds: Replenish Nutrients has closed a $7.5m equity investment from SRC Agrominerals for its Beiseker pelletisation expansion, and KBR's ammonia technology has been selected by Pampa Energía for an Argentinian plant. Urea's last print was $451/t and DAP $789/t, both as of 26 July.