Shell pipeline causes oil spill in polluted Nigerian region.

A new oil spill from a Shell facility in Nigeria has contaminated farmland and a river, affecting the livelihoods of fishing and farming communities in the Niger Delta, which has long suffered from environmental pollution caused by the oil industry. The volume of oil spilled has not been determined, but activists have published images of polluted farmland, water surfaces blighted by oil sheens, and dead fish mired in sticky crude. While spills are frequent in the region due to vandalism from oil thieves and a lack of maintenance to pipelines, according to the U.N. Environmental Program, activists call this a “major one.”