Romania’s military detonated part of the Danube riverbed to redirect water towards the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant after prolonged drought and extreme heat pushed the river to record-low levels.
Published On 3 Aug 20263 Aug 2026
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Do you think the Rams have a tracker at their headquarters for how many days it’s been since Puka Nacua’s last embarrassing incident?
They might. Because we all remember how frequently the self-inflicted damages were occurring during that bizarre and jarring stretch starting late last year.
We had the biting incident and alleged antisemitic comments on New Year’s Eve. Before that, we had the Rams’ star receiver making antisemitic gestures on a livestream with a couple of controversial streamers.
We also had him publicly calling out NFL officials on a stream and in a social media post sent from the locker room, and getting fined $25,000 by the league for that. We had his weird post on X — a laughing emoji and “sam darnold” — after the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback led his team to the Super Bowl LX championship on Feb. 9, when Nacua also was recorded stumbling and dancing in a San Francisco street after the game.
We had this all within just a couple of months. So we had to replace the image we previously had of Nacua as a jolly, smiling football star with a new one: a picture of teeth marks on a woman’s skin.
Ick.
Rams receiver Puka Nacua signs autographs during training camp at Loyola Marymount University on Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Nacua said Wednesday that he’s trying to be better, to do better.
“Definitely trying to take accountability for the things that I know that I can continue to change,” the 25-year-old said at Rams’ training camp at Loyola Marymount.
We should all hope so.
There’s enough at stake, don’t you think?
For Nacua, there’s the proverbial bag to secure. For the Rams, there’s the Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium, which everyone believes should be theirs for the taking. And there’s what winning will mean for the franchise’s stature in L.A., a city that’s impressed by little that’s short of championships.
Don’t mess this up, Puka.
No one wants the distraction of bizarre and disturbing behavior, of internet idiocy or civil lawsuits. (Nacua’s attorney, Levi McCathern, said the alleged bite was the result of “horseplay” and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office indicated last week that the matter was on track to be resolved through a program that allows eligible defendants to avoid criminal prosecution and jail time.)
No one wants to wonder what could have been if it turns out quarterback Matthew Stafford can’t count on Nacua getting open and punishing defenders downfield.
And no one should want to see the Rams’ sure-handed wide receiver let generational wealth slip through his fingers.
Nacua is one of those athletes who you trust on the field to make the play, but all his off-field shenanigans gave the Rams reason to doubt him, to make him skip his turn at the big payday.
He was up for a contract extension that could have paid him as much as $160 million over four years, instead he’ll be earning $5.8 million this season. He’ll have to prove himself to the Rams as a reliable investment.
But that’s OK, Nacua said. He’s happy to be back at work.
Rams receiver Puka Nacua tries to slip past defensive back Trent McDuffie during training camp at Loyola Marymount University on Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“There have been things outside of my control that I think have impacted the way I’ve been able to kind of focus and enjoy this game of football,” he said. “But coming out here and seeing that jersey No. 12 hung up in my locker is something that I don’t take for granted … the level of connection that I feel like I have with all the guys out there, [it] has never crossed my mind that I don’t want to be out here.”
One of the Rams’ primary weapons on offense, a barefooted Nacua went on the charm offensive after practice Wednesday, opening his media scrum by joking with reporters, asking how his hair looked and whether he had any boogers visible in his nose.
He looked fit, like he’s been taking care of himself. He said he was mostly laying off McDonald’s, seeing a therapist and appreciating football as a safe space. The dad of a baby boy, he spoke about that too.
He said he’s closed his “circle of trust” and expressed regret for actions that, he said, “haven’t been the truest reflection of the person I feel like I am, and how my mother raised me.”
“There’s definitely been conversations with her to apologize, but also for her to say that she supports me,” Nacua said of his mom, Penina, who brought up Puka and his five siblings as a single parent after her husband, Lionel, died in 2012.
“And also my brothers are, I think, my biggest critics as well,” Nacua said. “So there were some intense conversations, but loving conversations, in order to see improvement.”
Nacua is one of the Rams’ best players and absolutely their most popular. The loudest roar at Wednesday’s practice was when he showed up on the sideline with fellow receiver Davante Adams. When it was over, the sound of children shrieking “Puka!” reverberated off the bleachers.
The Rams are fans, too. Nacua isn’t tolerated for his talent; he’s adored for his spirit.
Coach Sean McVay loves the guy, a fifth-round draft pick out of BYU who broke a 63-year-old record for the most receiving yards by a rookie in NFL history: “You know how much I love him and the heart that he has,” McVay said Wednesday. “And I’ve been really proud of what he’s been doing and how he’s taking accountability for some of the things that we can learn from.”
Nacua said he was buoyed by messages from teammates during this turbulent offseason, in which he checked himself into a Malibu rehab facility to, as attorney McCathern said, “focus on his health, personal growth and overall development.”
We all know how valuable Nacua is on the field, but now we’re going to find out how much he values this opportunity, getting to take another rep to repair his reputation.
We’re going to find out if this man of many routes can run straight-and-narrow. Whether the slow-moving train wreck can get back on track. Whether he can keep stacking incident-free days.
Nacua says he can. “I feel,” he said, “very confident about that.”
Artificial intelligence is steadily changing how the world responds to crises.
Governments use it to analyse satellite imagery after natural disasters, humanitarian agencies are testing AI to anticipate displacement before it overwhelms fragile communities, and researchers are applying machine learning to uncover patterns buried inside millions of records that no human could process alone.
These advances, while useful, expose a problem worthy of scrutiny.
Most AI systems are built on data that tells only part of the world’s story. Since they are trained largely on information from North America, Europe, and parts of Asia, they know relatively little about the realities of conflict in parts of Nigeria like Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, Diffa or the wider Lake Chad Basin. They struggle with Hausa, Kanuri, Fulfulde, Igbo and hundreds of other African languages. In addition, they often miss the informal power structures, survival economies, historical grievances, and social relationships that determine whether a community remains stable or slips into violence.
For example, despite advancements in AI content flagging on social media platforms, HumAngle’s reporting and research have consistently found that moderation systems that perform effectively in English often fail to detect incitement expressed in Hausa, Kanuri, Igbo, and other Nigerian languages. Language models frequently miss local expressions, figurative speech and cultural nuances, allowing harmful content to evade automated moderation. That is not simply a technical limitation. It is a human security challenge.
Africa has long faced a deficit in research, reporting, documentation, and structured knowledge about local realities. That gap is becoming one of the continent’s biggest constraints in the AI era. Large language models (LLMs) can only learn from information that exists. If communities, conflicts, languages, histories or ecosystems remain poorly documented, those blind spots are carried directly into the systems built on them. Building culturally informed and representative AI therefore begins long before model development. It begins with producing more reliable knowledge.
Kunle Adebajo, editor of Code for Africa’s African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI), has this to say: “Artificial intelligence companies have successfully scraped most of what exists on the Internet to train their models. But a vast amount of data lives outside of the shores of the Internet, especially in Africa. AI systems, for example, will struggle with geolocation because many parts of Nigeria are still not properly mapped. They will struggle with translating languages spoken by minority ethnic groups. Even languages spoken by tens of millions of people, like Amharic, are considered low-resource by AI companies and therefore aren’t prioritised, let alone those spoken by only a few million. There’s, of course, also the lived experiences of conflict victims, which aren’t reported online and which you can only understand through fresh field interviews. Even when all this information is integrated into the AI systems, we still have the risk of hallucinations. In matters of security, we cannot take any of these shortcomings and risks lightly, because lives are at stake. Security actors who are incorporating AI tools into their operations must do their due diligence and maintain strong human oversight over the processes.”
The decline in funding for research and investigative reporting therefore comes at a critical moment. Every research project left unfunded, every environmental change left undocumented, and every local story that never enters the public record represents knowledge that remains unavailable not only to policymakers and researchers today but also to the AI systems increasingly shaping future analysis. The quality of future AI will depend, in part, on the quality and diversity of the knowledge produced today.
If the data is incomplete, the analysis will be incomplete. If the context is missing, the conclusions may be wrong. In fragile environments, inaccurate conclusions can delay humanitarian assistance, distort policy responses and, in the worst cases, cost lives.
Conflict rarely arrives without warning, and the warning signs are rarely dramatic. They are usually ordinary changes that occur over time, not all at once. A weekly market suddenly stops operating, or fishermen abandon parts of Lake Chad. Parents stop sending children to school weeks before an attack while farmlands expand into traditional grazing routes, or herders begin avoiding ancestral migration paths that have remained open for generations. HumAngle’s reporting has repeatedly documented these patterns.
Months before major offensives around the Lake Chad Basin, local communities described unusual restrictions on fishing, increased taxation by armed groups after governments introduced ransom-payment restrictions, shifting movement routes, and growing pressure on traders. These were not isolated observations. They formed part of a broader pattern.
In northwestern Nigeria, our reporting has shown how armed groups shifted from pickup vans to motorcycles when security operations disrupted their mobility. We documented how kidnapping networks increasingly demanded ransom in CFA francs after Nigeria’s cashless policy disrupted access to large amounts of naira. We traced the emergence of new ungoverned forest frontiers, the expansion of illegal mining sites and the growing links between critical minerals, transnational migration and armed violence. These adaptations rarely appear in conventional datasets, yet they are recognised by communities living with insecurity every day.
Researchers increasingly argue that AI systems become more reliable when such verified local observations are analysed alongside conventional datasets, helping analysts identify patterns that would otherwise remain fragmented.
Joshua Olufemi, Founder of Dataphyte, a data and research analytics company, believes that agenda-setting is critical to this. Speaking to HumAngle about some practical pathways, he mentioned “Multistakeholder agenda setting and strategic partnerships on critical infrastructure and local data modelling and innovation. Newsroom Viability and business case initiatives to build and sustain the ecosystem.”
The proposed HumAngle AI and Human Security Lab is designed to explore how verified field reporting, historical conflict data, humanitarian information, environmental indicators, satellite imagery, where appropriate, and open-source intelligence can be organised to identify areas where risk is changing.
The objective is not to predict the exact time or location of an attack. Conflict is too complex for deterministic prediction, and responsible AI requires transparency about uncertainty. Instead, the approach focuses on identifying shifts in risk while ensuring that assessments remain explainable, transparent, and subject to human review.
For humanitarian organisations, even a few days of additional warning can allow food supplies to be prepositioned before roads become inaccessible, schools to strengthen protection measures before attacks occur, vulnerable communities to relocate before violence escalates or emergency resources to reach areas before displacement intensifies.
Journalism is often viewed as a record of past events. Increasingly, it also provides structured evidence that can help explain how crises evolve over time.
For more than six years, HumAngle has reported on insurgency, communal violence, kidnapping, humanitarian crises and governance failures across Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.
Its investigations have exposed mass arbitrary detentions, documented attacks on schools, mapped displacement, tracked ransom economies and examined the evolution of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other armed groups.
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Reporting on school attacks has gone beyond casualty figures to examine how fear empties classrooms, deepens inequality and reshapes communities. Investigations into kidnapping networks have documented how criminal economies evolve, how ransom systems adapt and how insecurity expands into areas once considered relatively stable. Each story contains verified interviews, timelines, locations, local terminology and community knowledge. They represent one of Africa’s richest public interest records documenting how insecurity has evolved across the Lake Chad Basin and the wider Sahel.
Adebajo argues that this type of journalism becomes even more valuable when its evidence is intentionally structured for computational analysis.
“Credible investigative journalism products and community knowledge can be used to train AI models that provide intelligence for crisis signalling and data-driven predictive research. But it has to be structured. The good thing is that AI tools can help with that structuring, so it doesn’t consume as much time. However, collecting information for AI training and collecting information for Investigative reporting are not the same thing.”
According to the investigative journalist and AI researcher at Code for Africa, “if you set your mind on achieving both objectives, it’ll also inform the kind of data you collect and how you standardise the process and schema across different scenarios. When you have such a big dataset from years of journalism, you can combine it with other security, satellite, and reporting datasets to draw out patterns and outliers. You can determine which areas are more susceptible to attacks and multiple displacements, which seasons, what time of day, etc.”
Beyond the statistics of political violence, you can also draw out patterns in the nature of the attacks and the experiences of victims. All these can help with better allocation of scarce resources in tackling the problem of insecurity, Adebajo argued.
Kofoworola Odozi, a media analyst and AI hobbyist, agrees. She believes deliberate archiving is central to this work. “Newsrooms and CSOs have to build a digital library that has local information and that they completely own and control. What this would do for us is that instead of relying on data that big tech companies gather, we collect more materials like notes from townhalls, local newspapers, budget hearing notes–things like that that you would not typically find in the data that big tech companies have. CSOs and newsrooms can gather that and use open source to document them.”
The media analyst also believes that media and CSOs have to move to a unified digital infrastructure. “Media and CSOs are very individualistic in the ways we work, even though we are all working towards the same thing. We should work towards an industry-wide consortium.”
Adebajo says there are some strategies working at Code for Africa.
“One thing we’re doing at Code for Africa in our fight against information disorder is to go beyond fact-checking to train people who edit Wikipedia articles and train AI models, so that we can put the fact-checks into a pipeline that feeds into quality AI data, because we understand that more and more people are getting their information directly from these models,” he said. “That’s another thing to consider when reporting on conflict, especially in the fight against misinformation and conspiracy theories. How do we get these dozens and hundreds of reports to be assimilated reliably into AI systems, which are not only disseminating information directly to people but are also feeding indirectly into other knowledge production mechanisms?”
Much of the AI conversation focuses on larger models, faster processors, and bigger datasets. Yet model performance ultimately depends on the quality and relevance of the information used to train it.
A global AI system may recognise the word “flood.” It may identify references to drought, migration or armed conflict. Yet it may completely miss why a cash policy disrupted kidnapping networks, why changes in seasonal border patrols altered irregular migration routes or why the discovery of lithium, gold, and other strategic minerals reshaped local security dynamics.
It may recognise extremist vocabulary without understanding how concepts such as hijrah, bay’ah or takfir carry different meanings depending on who is using them, where they are used, and the historical context in which they are invoked.
It may classify a dispute as ethnic when local communities understand it primarily as competition over grazing routes, irrigation access, taxation or political representation.
Without local knowledge, AI systems risk misunderstanding complex societies despite increasing computational power.
Conflict no longer unfolds only on the ground. It also unfolds across phones, messaging platforms, and social media.
False rumours spread within minutes as old videos are recycled as evidence of new attacks. AI-generated images and synthetic audio are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from authentic documentation, and armed groups continue adapting their propaganda while misinformation and disinformation deepen mistrust between communities and weaken confidence in legitimate institutions.
HumAngle has documented how Boko Haram and ISWAP compete not only through violence but also through narratives that seek legitimacy, exploit grievances and shape public perceptions of governance, justice and religion.
Understanding these information ecosystems is becoming increasingly important for humanitarian response and conflict analysis.
The proposed HumAngle AI and Human Security Lab also explores how publicly available information can be analysed to better understand AI-enabled misinformation, extremist narratives, and digital conflict across African contexts, while respecting privacy, freedom of expression, and the principles of independent journalism.
The growing use of AI in humanitarian and security settings has been accompanied by claims that algorithms will predict wars or replace analysts. Current evidence suggests a more limited role.
AI can support human decision-making by organising large volumes of information, identifying patterns and highlighting anomalies. Human judgement remains essential for interpreting those findings, questioning assumptions, and understanding context. Transparency about uncertainty, limitations, and data quality remains fundamental in fragile environments where analytical errors can carry significant consequences.
The debate over AI in Africa has increasingly shifted from digital access to questions of data, governance, and representation.
Africa possesses extensive community knowledge, linguistic diversity, and historical experience that remain underrepresented in many AI systems. As governments, humanitarian organisations and researchers expand the use of AI in crisis response, these forms of knowledge are becoming increasingly important sources of evidence.
The proposed HumAngle AI and Human Security Lab’s focus is not AI for its own sake. It is the development of analytical tools that help humanitarian organisations act earlier, journalists identify emerging patterns, researchers organise complex evidence and policymakers make better-informed decisions.
If these approaches prove effective, AI may contribute to more timely humanitarian action, stronger evidence-based policymaking and improved protection for vulnerable communities.
Rodrigo de Paul has become, in this Argentina squad, what Jose Manuel Pinto once was at Barcelona, or Luis Suarez later became: the team-mate with whom Messi instantly feels at home.
Their bond was forged on international duty. Until then, the midfielder’s only connection to Messi had been asking for a photo after a Valencia–Barcelona match, which he proudly posted on social media.
One afternoon, he noticed Messi leave training alone, looking subdued. Concerned, De Paul waited about 40 minutes before knocking on his door.
“Fancy a mate and a game of truco?”
A friendship began, with its own strict etiquette. Mate, the drink, together every morning in De Paul’s room. In order of arrival, Leo first, then other members of the squad. If they got up too early, they have to wait for the moment to get to De Paul’s room, nobody can jump the routine.
De Paul sometimes calls Messi ‘El Pequeno’ (the little one), even though he is the oldest in the room.
He needles him, treats him like a normal guy rather than a monument, because that is what Messi actually more often than not wants: to be Leo, not Messi. De Paul knows him well enough to sense when to leave him alone, too.
Walking out to the pitch, Messi leads, De Paul at his side, the rest of the squad fanning out behind almost in a wedge – like a street gang protecting its leader.
For many of this group Messi was never simply a team-mate first, he was the childhood idol on television, the reason some of them picked up a ball at all.
The whole squad wears the same boots, the Adidas Adistar Messi. For his birthday in June, the players wore a T-shirt printed with a photo of themselves alongside Leo from some point across his years with the national team.
In 2023, California regulators levied more than $100,000 in fines against the private operator of a federal immigration facility, kicking off a three-year battle over whether detainees who do work at the facilities should be considered employees.
The question went beyond semantics: If considered employees, the detainees would be subject to state worker protection laws.
A legal settlement announced this week now affirms that private immigrant detention facilities are subject to California’s workplace safety and health requirements.
“Every worker deserves a safe and healthy workplace and should be able to report workplace hazards without fear of retaliation,” said Denisse Gómez, spokesperson for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health or Cal/OSHA.
“Individuals who perform work in these facilities are entitled to workplace safety protections, and this settlement reinforces Cal/OSHA’s commitment to enforcing those protections and safeguarding vulnerable workers,” she added.
Under the settlement between California and the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison company, the company recently withdrew its legal challenges and agreed to pay more than $100,000 in the fines.
The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.
Back in 2023, Cal/OSHA issued $104,510 in fines against the GEO Group. The agency had found six violations of state code by the company after detainees complained about a lack of protective equipment and proper training while cleaning the facility for $1 per day.
Detainees alleged they routinely wiped black mold off shower walls at the facility, saw black dust spew from air vents and used cleaning solutions that lacked instructions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The biggest fine levied against the GEO Group was for failure to establish and maintain “effective written procedures to reduce employee risk of exposure to aerosol transmissible disease.”
Advocates viewed Cal/OSHA’S recognition of the detainees as workers as a victory that could pave the way for future labor rights fights at other detention centers in the state.
But the GEO Group appealed, arguing that detainees participating in ICE’s voluntary work program make their own schedules and aren’t employees, so hazard exposure couldn’t be “as a result of assigned duties,” as California law states. Plus, the company argued, there wasn’t enough evidence that detainees were exposed to any hazard.
Early last year, the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board rejected the GEO Group’s argument and found that detainees should be considered “affected employees.”
The GEO Group sued, but three days before a California Superior Court hearing in May, the company and Cal/OSHA reached the settlement.
Along with paying the fines, the GEO Group agreed to draft plans for avoiding aerosol transmissions at 12 secure and reentry facilities in California, including five detention centers that hold immigrants.
“GEO ensures detainees are afforded the necessary tools, equipment, and personal protective equipment … to safely and effectively perform any necessary tasks,” the settlement states.
Gómez said the settlement also leaves intact the appeals board’s ruling that civil immigration detainees who participate in work programs can participate in proceedings anonymously, “acknowledging the potential for retaliation when individuals raise workplace safety concerns.”
But the question of whether detainees are employees and deserve certain protections isn’t entirely resolved — at least not for the federal government.
Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released new standards for detention facilities across the country. The revised guidelines “emphasize that detainee volunteers participating in the voluntary work program are not considered facility and/or government employees” and thus not entitled to labor regulations.
Attorney Mariel Villarreal said the timing of the new detention standards made her question whether the GEO Group had asked ICE to specify in its standards that detainees are not workers in response to its battle with Cal/OSHA.
“To me, it’s a reaction to this very settlement,” she said. Villarreal works for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which filed the original complaint on behalf of detainees who said they worked in unsafe conditions.
Villarreal pointed to a Washington Post report that GEO Group executives privately asked ICE to specify that detainees are not employees of the facilities where they work. Two top Trump administration officials, border czar Tom Homan and acting ICE director David Venturella, previously worked for the GEO Group.
New versions of ICE detention standards take effect as contracts are established or modified, so this year’s rules won’t immediately apply to every facility.
An ICE spokesperson did not comment about the settlement. The spokesperson, who did not provide their name in an emailed statement Wednesday, said the agency has begun transitioning detention facilities to meet the 2026 standards, “building on its longstanding commitment to safe, secure, and professional detention operations.”
“ICE has consistently implemented many of these best practices independently, reinforcing its role as the leader in detention operations,” the spokesperson added.
The GEO Group and other immigrant detention center operators have faced other legal battles over workers’ rights, including lawsuits in Washington, Colorado and California over the $1-per-day payment.
Villarreal said she’s confident that the Cal/OSHA settlement would continue to hold even if California facilities incorporated the new standards. But she said she believes the statements are an attempt by the GEO Group to “sidestep responsibility” and avoid the possibility of being fined under similar circumstances in other states.
“These statements in the new standards are a way for them to try and preserve profits as much as possible,” she said. “GEO and ICE are so intertwined at this point that they have the same motives.”
July 1 (UPI) — John Brennan, former director of the CIA and a longtime foe of the Trump administration, filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking a federal court to preserve all records related to the administration’s investigation of him.
The Justice Department has been eyeing Brennan for months, with lawyers interviewing former intelligence officials and issuing subpoenas as part of a conspiracy investigation, The Washington Post reported.
Justice Department officials have alleged that Brennan and others violated President Donald Trump‘s civil rights in a conspiracy back to the Obama administration that included efforts to prosecute Trump and investigate his ties to Russia, The Post said. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, also referred Brennan to the Justice Department, alleging that he lied during testimony to Congress.
Brennan’s attorneys requested that a judge order the administration to preserve any internal records and communications from the investigation.
The records could be used as part of defense arguments that the investigation and any prosecution are part of Trump’s attempt to vindictively punish Brennan, the attorneys said, citing an administration policy “of using criminal process and prosecution to punish the president’s perceived adversaries,” The Post said.
“Administration officials from the acting attorney general to the FBI director and the counselor overseeing the Brennan investigations have been publicly declaring Director Brennan a criminal, not only before securing a conviction in court but even before a full investigation and indictment,” the lawyers wrote, CNN reported.
“And, certain officials in the Department of Justice are engaging in demonstrably irregular prosecutorial activity in order to gin up a case that will satisfy the president’s direction,” they wrote.
Brennan has also said the court should preserve any records that could be used in any broader “grand conspiracy” investigation by the Justice Department. He has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit names Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and prosecutors in Florida overseeing the investigation.
Protesters urged the Venezuelan government to bring rice imports under control. (Archive)
Caracas, June 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Hundreds of rice producers took to the streets on Sunday in Calabozo, Guárico state, to urge the Venezuelan government to take action against agribusiness imports and price fixing.
The “tractorazo” saw local campesinos block one of the state’s major highways with tractors, trucks, and other heavy machinery carrying Venezuelan flags and signs with some of the main demands. Local sources estimated turnout at over 300.
“We are here on behalf of the producing states in Venezuela with a struggle that is just and urgent,” local spokesman José de la Cueva stated. “We urge the Venezuelan government to review its public policies so that national production is not destroyed.”
De la Cueva and other speakers emphasized the need for authorities to control imports, establish fair prices, and implement subsidies for the production of rice and other crops. Protesters contended that they have no conditions to compete with imports from countries where rice is subsidized, including Brazil and the US.
Rice growers, particularly in agricultural states Barinas, Cojedes, Guárico, and Portuguesa, have warned for months that agroindustry conglomerates have been importing massively since February.
According to agribusiness lobby FEDEAGRO, Venezuela has received more than 300,000 tons of imported rice in recent months. The amount is nearly half the 683,000 reportedly produced in the Caribbean country in 2025.
FEDEAGRO has complained that the exoneration of tariffs and import taxes is benefiting imported rice against national competitors. Imports of other crops such as corn have also skyrocketed, with purchases from the US more than tripling in the first five months of 2026 when compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, campesinos have repeatedly denounced that local agribusiness corporations outright refuse to receive rice crops or attempt to impose prices as low as US $0.30 per kilo. Venezuela’s Agriculture Ministry established $0.40 per kilo following meetings with agroindustry and campesino representatives. Producers complained that the price did not take into account rising production costs and risked driving them bankrupt.
Alongside the latest street mobilization, rural organizations have likewise called for a boycott of Venezuela’s main agrifood conglomerates, including Polar and Iancarina.
The Small Farmers Movement (MPA), one of the organizations that took part in Sunday’s protest, issued a statement stressing that the defense of Venezuelan production and food sovereignty should become a “national unity cause.”
“This protest is about the survival of thousands of campesino families,” the text read. “It denounces the cruelty of agroindustry bosses whose voracious appetite for profit is fueling imports during harvest seasons to drive prices down.”
The MPA added that the growth of agricultural output in recent years has been based on “the exploitation of the work of thousands of campesinos” and urged social movements not to stay silent when it comes to the reality of small-scale producers in the countryside.
The campesino organization urged the government to adopt a series of measures, including implementing fair prices for rice and corn, reviewing import policies during harvest seasons, and investigating the “cartelization of prices” by agroindustry oligopolies. The MPA also called attention to the lack of credit for small-scale producers, which leaves them vulnerable to predatory lending agreements, including ones where they are offered seeds and inputs in exchange for a significant percentage of the harvest.
In a recent meeting with campesinos in Guárico state, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez vowed to investigate the issue of rice imports, claiming he was not previously aware of it. He urged agribusinesses to respect the previously agreed $0.40 price and called on public banks to reactivate credit for rural producers.
In recent years, with the economy heavily constrained by US sanctions, the Nicolás Maduro government moved to liberalize agricultural policies, transferring state competencies to the private sector, including provisioning of seed and fertilizer inputs and access to tractors. Fuel subsidies have also been phased out, with small-scale producers highlighting it as a major factor driving up production costs.
Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.
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Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Forced to defend against thousands of Iranian drone and missile attacks before and after the ceasefire in the now-paused U.S.-Israel war on Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) appears to have taken a play from Russia and its war with Ukraine in an attempt to secure some of its energy facilities with massive metal ‘cope cages.’
An image posted on X by Israel’s I24 News outlet shows what it claims is caging around oil tanks near Dubai International Airport. In the far-right section of the photo, what appears to be a more complete metal enclosure of some of the fuel tanks can be seen, while in the foreground, construction looks to be taking place on caging for additional tanks.
בדובאי החלו למגן באמצעות רשתות ברזל אתרים אסטרטגיים שקשורים לתעשיית הנפט, סמוך לנמל התעופה pic.twitter.com/mL4n28dBSH
— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) May 13, 2026
This seems to be the first sighting of these structures in the UAE and across the Gulf Arab nations. It is unclear when construction on the structures began or how many of these barriers the UAE is building or plans to build. We have reached out to the UAE Embassy in Washington for more details.
As we have reported in the past, the idea behind these kinds of metal structures is to mitigate the damage caused by incoming munitions by creating a barrier between the point of weapon impact and the target. The caging depicted is not designed to protect against Iranian ballistic missiles, and even cruise missiles could be a challenge. These kinds of structures are made to help defend against one-way attack munitions, such as the Shahed-136, many of which Iran has launched against the UAE. They can also protect from near-field small suicide drone attacks, although these have not been a major issue in the UAE during this conflict.
As noted earlier, while these structures may be new to the UAE, it is not the first time metal caging and even mesh nets have been used to protect critical energy infrastructure. Russia has employed these measures on its oil storage facilities in attempts to protect them from repeated Ukrainian drone attacks for a number of years now.
You can see some of those defensive measures in the following images and videos.
Russia Puts Cope Cages on Oil Storage Tanks
It is no surprise that the UAE would resort to such measures. Since the conflict broke out on Feb. 28, the Emirates have been particularly hard hit by Iranian attacks, especially on its energy infrastructure.
The UAE Defense Ministry says its air defenses “have engaged a total of 551 ballistic missiles, 29 cruise missiles, and 2,265 UAVs” fired by Iran.
Two of the UAE’s major energy infrastructure sites – the oil storage facilities at the UAE Port of Fujairah and the Habshan natural gas processing facility – have been damaged by Iranian missiles and drones. You can see video of some of the Iranian attacks on the UAE below.
🇮🇷🇦🇪 UAE Attacked AGAIN
Iran is suspected to have done it in retaliation to yesterday strikes. Waiting for comment from Iran.
There are reports of SMOKE at the airport, unclear if it is related to this event or something else. Pending confirmation.
The UAE Ministry of… https://t.co/m0cIgIKe9D pic.twitter.com/7pxMki1CFo
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) May 8, 2026
⚡🇮🇷🇦🇪 Iranian attack drones struck oil storage infrastructure worth around $50 billion in Fujairah, UAE, this morning, causing a large fire.
Notably, Fujairah is the only major oil export terminal in the UAE that bypasses the now closed Strait of Hormuz. Oil could hit $100 this… pic.twitter.com/nyIStj7gak
— Defense Intelligence (@DI313_) March 3, 2026
Habshan, the main natural gas plant supplying the fuel in the United Arab Emirates “will only return to full capacity next year, highlighting the long recovery times for some of the region’s most critical infrastructure that was damaged in the Iran war,” Bloomberg News noted.
🚨 The Habshan Gas Facility In 🇦🇪 UAE Will Not Be Restored To Its Complete Operational Capacity Before 2027 Because of 🇮🇷 Iranian Strikes.
– Financial Times pic.twitter.com/2Bz0Y9Cy8m
— Asad Nasir (@asadnasir2000) May 12, 2026
The most recent Iranian attack on the UAE came on May 10, more than a month after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire that is barely holding on. The Emirates, however, haven’t just taken defensive measures. As we noted earlier this week, reports emerged that it carried out secret airstrikes on Iranian targets.
The war has once again highlighted the need for hardened structures to protect valuable assets, an issue TWZ has frequently covered. Meanwhile, shortly before the war broke out, the U.S. took a step toward acknowledging the importance of these kinds of defensive systems. The Pentagon issued new guidance for protecting critical infrastructure against drone attacks that calls for increased use of netting, cables, and other kinds of passive physical defenses.
The following video shows War Secretary Pete Hegseth introducing the Pentagon’s new approach to protecting infrastructure from drone attacks.
The new plan represented a notable shift in policy within the department. For years now, U.S. military officials have often pushed back on the utility and cost-effectiveness of investing more in the physical hardening of bases and other critical facilities, especially shelters to shield aircraft from drones and other threats.
Whether the new structures UAE is building to defend its energy infrastructure actually work will only be known should Iran launch a new round of attacks that target these sites. Clearly, the world will be watching and taking notes.
Contact the author: howard@twz.com