With the despoilation of San Francisco Bay still in the headlines, comes far worse news from the Sea of Azov. This should give pause just after Russia has announced a series of new oil hubs in the Arctic Passage—newly opened to ship traffic due to global warming. From Environment News Service, Nov. 11:

MOSCOW - Stormy seas and gale-force winds in the narrow Kerch Strait between Russia and Ukraine have smashed a Russian oil tanker in half, spilling at least 2,000 metric tonnes of fuel oil, the Russian Ministry for Emergencies said Sunday. Environmentalists and Russian officials are calling it the worst oil spill in the region for decades and "an ecological catastrophe."

Some 400 neo-Nazis were blocked from marching in Prague by a group of approximately 2,000 anti-fascist activists Nov. 10—the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Six were reported injured in clashes between the two camps. The far-right Young Nationalist Democrats (MND) received back-up from two busloads of German supporters for their march on Prague's Jewish Quarter. Clashes broke out in front of the 13th-century Old New Synagogue—Europe's oldest Jewish house of worship—after one of the Nazis used pepper spray against a counter-protester. Two neo-Nazis lay in a pool of blood after being beaten by a group of German anarchists. Police arrested over 40 neo-Nazis, and reported some of them carried weapons such as iron rods and explosives. Prague authorities had banned the march, and sealed off subway stations to prevent neo-Nazis from reaching the quarter.

The government of Niger reports three soldiers were wounded and four are missing after Tuareg rebels attacked a civilian convoy escorted by the military Nov. 9. The rebel Movement of the People of Niger for Justice (MNJ) claimed it had killed 15 soldiers and captured four. They also said they had destroyed three military vehicles and seized another, but denied having attacked civilians. The ambush took place on the road between Agadez, the regional capital of the desert region of that name, and Arlit to the north.

This Nov. 9 BBC report on Sudan's expulsion of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Darfur, Wael al-Haj Ibrahim, answers the question of what happened to the residents of a refugee camp near Nyala, who were forcibly relocated by government troops—as reported earlier by the BBC (and practically nobody else). The strategy seems to be to disperse the refugees into the shanty settlements on the outskirts of Darfur's towns, thereby rendering them invisible (as the estimated three million displaced persons in Colombia are).

Um, didn't we just hear identical news about Iraq? If Cambodia was Nixon's "sideshow" to Vietnam, Afghanistan is Bush's to Iraq—largely eclipsed from the headlines, even as it goes from really bad to considerably worse... From AP, Nov. 10:

KABUL — Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made 2007 the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

From the Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 9:

Coca grower leader threatens to kill five journalists
Reporters Without Borders today condemned death threats made against five journalists in the northwestern province of Tocache by Sergio Gonzales Apaza, the leader of the "Saúl Guevara Díaz" group of cocaleros (coca growers). The cocaleros have been on strike since 2 November in protest against the eradication of their crops by the government, which accuses them of cooperating with drug traffickers.

From the LA Times, Nov. 10:

Emergency declared in Bay Area oil spill
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday for the San Francisco Bay Area as an oil spill continued to coat some of the state's most storied coastline and imperil marine wildlife.

Three days before the Nov. 7 opening of the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, a hacker broke into the website of Chile's presidency and planted the flag of Peru, leaving the site inoperable for some 18 hours. AP reports the intruder left a message—"Long live Peru," followed by "an expletive." Chile's less squeamish Noticias 123 identifies the full epithet as "Viva el Perú, mierda" (Long live Peru, you shit). AP helpfully informs us: "The Santiago daily El Mercurio on Monday reported that officials believe the hacker was a Peruvian." (No, ya think?) The move comes as officials are taking steps to redress Peru's long-standing grievances against its southern neighbor. BBC reports Nov. 7 that Chile has returned 3,778 books—many dating back to the 16th century—to Peru's national library, which was pillaged by Chilean soldiers during their 1881 occupation of Lima. BBC smarmily notes, "there was no talk of a fine." Peru lost territory to Chile in the 1879-83 War of the Pacific, and Bolivia lost access to the sea.