Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

U.S. administers 423.9 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines – CDC

(Reuters) – The United States has administered 423,942,794 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Tuesday morning and distributed 521,502,845 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Those figures are up from the 423,005,384 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Nov. 1 out of 518,561,375 doses delivered.

The agency said 221,961,370 people had received at least one dose while 192,726,406 people were fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

The CDC tally includes two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, as well as Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine.

About 19.8 million people have received a booster dose of either Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. Booster doses from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were authorized by the U.S. health regulator on Oct. 20.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru)

California farm town lurches from no water to polluted water

By Daniel Trotta

TEVISTON, Calif. (Reuters) – The San Joaquin Valley farm town of Teviston has two wells. One went dry and the other is contaminated.

The one functioning well failed just at the start of summer, depriving the hot and dusty hamlet of running water for weeks. With temperatures routinely soaring above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), farm workers bathed with buckets after laboring in the nearby vineyards and almond orchards.

Even as officials restored a modicum of pressure with trucked-in water, and after the well was repaired, the hardships have endured. Teviston’s 400 to 700 people – figures fluctuate with the agricultural season – have received bottled drinking water since the well failed in June.

But for years, probably decades, the water coming from Teviston taps has been laced with the carcinogen 1,2,3-Trichloropropane, or 1,2,3-TCP, the legacy of pesticides.

The Western U.S. drought, the most severe in 125 years of record-keeping, is exacting a further toll on communities throughout the San Joaquin Valley, where people living on the edge of farmland gather many of the crops but little of the largesse from California’s $50 billion agricultural industry.

For Esperanza Guerrero, 35, a Mexican immigrant and homemaker whose husband works at a dairy farm, the poor water quality poses additional dangers for her 16-year-old daughter, who can drink only purified water because of a gastrointestinal ailment.

“It’s very stressful as a mother to know that if for any reason she should wash a piece of fruit (with tap water) and eat it, she’s going down,” Guerrero said while picking up bottled water from the community depot.

Teviston, devoid of any retail or commercial business, won a $3 million settlement in June from pesticide producers Dow Chemical Company and Shell Oil Company and distributors that will pay for a water treatment plant.

Dow declined to comment on Teviston, but said there was “no merit” to allegations in similar lawsuits brought by other local jurisdictions in the San Joaquin Valley.

“The plaintiffs’ claims in these cases are based on a California water quality standard that went into effect in 2018, several decades after the product formulations in question were discontinued. To the extent TCP was present in past product formulations, it would have been at levels so low as to pose no environmental risk,” the company said in a statement.

Shell declined to comment on active litigation.

The settlement will help Teviston resolve the dilemma of having to choose between safe or affordable water, said Todd Robins, an attorney with San Francisco-based Robins Borghei LLP who has represented other towns like Teviston in similar lawsuits.

The arid, forbidding land of the San Joaquin Valley has been transformed into one of the most fertile plains in the world by farmers, politicians and engineers who changed the course of mighty rivers and brought water hundreds of miles to a valley so broad and flat that in most directions the fields meet sky.

The drought has made both surface and ground water scarce.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates canals moving surface water from Northern California further south, has cut allotments to farmers this year: first to a mere 5% of normal, then down to zero.

That increased demand on the aquifers. Growers who operate their own wells are lowering the water table for neighboring towns like Teviston that depend on well water.

Outside the valley, many environmentalists criticize growers. The people of Teviston don’t paint them as the enemy.

“We need the farms. Without the farms, we don’t have any work,” said Frank Galaviz, a director on the town council who has emerged as Teviston’s leading water advocate.

THE ENEMY BELOW

Historically, the farms have faced another nemesis besides drought.

Beneath the ground, tiny worms called nematodes infest roots. For decades, through the 1980’s, growers injected their soil with the since-discontinued pesticides Telone, made by Dow, and D-D, made by Shell, according to Robins, who has pieced together the history of 1,2,3-TCP contamination through about 70 lawsuits against both companies.

By the 1990’s health officials established that TCP was carcinogenic and would linger in the water table for a lifetime unless removed by filtration. California’s TCP problem is concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley, state data show.

Telone and D-D were essentially a byproduct of other chemical processes that would have been disposed of were it not found to be an effective pesticide, enabling the companies to offload the byproduct by selling it to farmers, Robins said.

“It’s a dirty secret,” Robins said, adding that Dow’s reformulated Telone II became more effective once TCP and other impurities were removed.

While Teviston awaits a treatment plant, its TCP levels remain above safe levels. In May, testing showed the TCP level was nearly three times the maximum acceptable level, and in March it was more than seven times the limit, according to the state’s Safe Drinking Water Information System. In September, Teviston showed a negligible amount, an outlier that experts said could be skewed by the new well or the extreme drought.

Teviston’s marginalization dates back nearly a century, when Black workers arrived to work white-owned cotton farms. While the farmers had sought the Black workers, the workers were unwelcome in white towns, and they formed a tent city that became Teviston. Over the years the workforce became immigrant Mexican, another politically disadvantaged class, and white family farms were supplanted by corporations operating ever larger tracts of factory farms.

Dorris Brooks, an African American woman who lives at the end of Teviston’s water line, said past efforts to improve well water have only resulted in temporary relief.

“You can see there’s actually sludge that comes out of the tap,” Brooks said.

Brooks, who moved to Teviston as an adult 43 years ago, questioned whether the settlement was just.

“That company got away with for messing up the water and the people’s lives,” Brooks said. “There’s sick people here.”

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta. Editing by Donna Bryson and Diane Craft)

From Boeing to Mercedes, a U.S. worker rebellion swells over vaccine mandates

By Tina Bellon and Eric M. Johnson

AUSTIN/SEATTLE (Reuters) – In Wichita, Kansas, nearly half of the roughly 10,000 employees at aircraft companies Textron Inc and Spirit AeroSystems remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, risking their jobs in defiance of a federal mandate, according to a union official.

“We’re going to lose a lot of employees over this,” said Cornell Beard, head of the local Machinists union district. Many workers did not object to the vaccines as such, he said, but were staunchly opposed to what they see as government meddling in personal health decisions.

The union district has hired a Texas-based lawyer to assist employees and prepare potential lawsuits against the companies should requests for medical or religious exemptions to vaccination be denied.

A life-long Democrat, Beard said he would no longer vote for the party. “They’ll never get another vote from me and I’m telling the workers here the same thing.”

The clock is ticking for companies that want to continue gaining federal contracts under an executive order by Democratic President Joe Biden, which requires all contractor employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 8.

That means federal contract workers need to have received their last COVID-19 shot at least two weeks before the deadline to gain maximum protection, according to U.S. government guidance.

With a three-week gap between shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, workers must get the first jab by Wednesday. If the government holds fast to its deadline, it is already too late to choose Moderna’s vaccine, which is given in two doses four weeks apart. Workers could opt to get Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine until Nov. 24 to meet the deadline.

Vaccines remain by far the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, particularly faced with the extremely contagious Delta variant of the virus that can cause infections even among those fully vaccinated.

Despite vocal opposition from some, vaccine mandates have been effective at shrinking the rates of the unvaccinated and convincing the reluctant to roll up their sleeves.

Several big employers such as Procter & Gamble, 3M and airlines including American Airlines and JetBlue have imposed mandates. In some industries, including among food workers, unions have supported vaccine requirements.

But the mandate has stirred protests from workers in industries across the country, as well as from Republican state officials.

Opposition to the mandate could potentially lead to thousands of U.S. workers losing their jobs and imperil an already sluggish economic recovery, union leaders, workers and company executives said.

More legal clashes are likely over how companies decide requests for vaccination exemptions.

For the companies, time is getting tight, though the Biden administration has signaled federal contractors will not have to immediately lay off unvaccinated workers who miss the Dec. 8 deadline.

Under government guidance published on Monday, companies will have flexibility over how to implement the mandate, which may allow them to avoid mass firings.

“A covered contractor should determine the appropriate means of enforcement with respect to its employee,” the guidance said.

For Boeing Co in the United States, more than 7,000 workers have applied for religious exemptions and around 1,000 are seeking medical exemptions, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. That amounts to some 6% of the plane maker’s roughly 125,000 U.S employees.

‘ILLEGAL, IMMORAL AND IMPRACTICAL’

At a rally last week outside Boeing property in Auburn, south of Seattle, many of the three dozen workers gathered in driving rain said they would rather be escorted off Boeing property on Dec. 8 than take a vaccine. Others said they would pursue early retirement.

“The mandate is illegal, immoral and impractical,” said one veteran Boeing program analyst who attended the rally. “We are standing together against a company and government trampling on our rights.”

Many legal experts have said vaccine mandates in the interest of public health are legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected several challenges to mandates, with the high court last week turning away a healthcare worker who sought a religious exemption to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The rebellion has put Boeing executives in a bind. The company could lose skilled staff, but must comply with a presidential order.

A Boeing spokesperson said the company was committed to maintaining a safe working environment for its employees.

The order’s provision for religious and medical exemptions is causing more tension.

Two Textron workers who requested religious exemptions told Reuters the company’s human resources representatives quizzed them on the name of their church leaders and asked detailed questions about their faith.

Textron declined to respond to questions, but in a statement said it was obligated to comply with Biden’s order and was taking steps to do so.

“Employees who are unable to receive the COVID-19 vaccination due to a medical condition or sincerely held religious belief are being provided an opportunity to request an accommodation from this requirement,” Textron said.

Spirit AeroSystems did not respond to a request for comment.

Raytheon Technologies’ CEO Greg Hayes last week warned the U.S. defense firm will lose “several thousand” employees because of the mandate.

A group representing FedEx Corp, United Parcel Service Inc and other cargo carriers said it would be virtually impossible to have all their workforces vaccinated by the deadline.

Some companies have imposed vaccine mandates even absent immediate government regulation.

Mercedes-Benz USA, the U.S. unit of German carmaker Daimler AG which is not a U.S. government contractor, told employees in an October email seen by Reuters that proof of vaccination against COVID-19 would become a condition of employment beginning Jan. 4.

The carmaker said it implemented the move in anticipation of a separate U.S. government vaccine mandate that would apply to businesses with at least 100 employees, affecting some 80 million workers nationwide.

Less than half of the company’s workers at U.S. import processing centers are vaccinated and many refuse to get a shot, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Mercedes USA in a statement said it had given employees 90-day notice to fulfill the requirement, adding that two thirds of its U.S. employees – not including factory workers in Alabama – have provided proof of vaccination to date.

“We expect that the vast majority of our employees will provide proof of vaccination before the deadline,” the company said.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon in Austin, Texas and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Washington; Editing by Joe White and Bill Berkrot)

Addis Ababa government tells residents to prepare to defend neighborhoods

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) -Authorities in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Tuesday urged residents to prepare to defend their neighborhoods after forces from Tigray region, who have been fighting the central government for a year, indicated they could advance on the city.

People should register their weapons and gather in their neighborhoods, the city administration said in a statement carried by the Ethiopian News Agency.

House-to-house searches were being conducted and troublemakers arrested, the statement said.

“Residents can gather in their locality and safeguard their surroundings,” the statement added. “Those who have weapons but can’t take part in safeguarding their surroundings are advised to handover the weapon to the government or their close relatives or friends.”

The appeal came after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) claimed to have captured several towns in recent days and said it was considering marching on Addis Ababa, about 380 km (235 miles) to the south of their forward positions.

Federal government spokesperson Legesse Tulu did not respond to a request for comment.

People moved around the capital as normal on Tuesday, with one woman saying she had not heard of the latest directive.

“I will try to buy food commodities in advance. But so far I haven’t yet purchased anything,” said the woman, who asked not to be named.

Another resident, a Tigrayan, said he was frightened because of a rise in ethnic slurs and incitement to violence against Tigrayans on social media.

“They may come up with stories that could create violence against Tigrayans,” he said. There have previously been several police round-ups of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa. Authorities denied it was due to their ethnicity.

The governments of four of the country’s 10 regions also called upon Ethiopians to mobilize to fight against the Tigrayan forces, state-affiliated Fana TV said.

The conflict started over the night of Nov. 3, 2020, when forces loyal to the TPLF – including some soldiers – seized military bases in Tigray, a northern region. In response, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent more troops there.

The TPLF had dominated national politics for nearly three decades but lost much influence when Abiy took office in 2018 following years of anti-government protests.

Relations with the TPLF soured after they accused him of centralizing power at the expense of Ethiopia’s regional states – an accusation Abiy denies.

TOWNS CAPTURED

TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda said that if the Tigrayan forces and their allies succeeded in removing the government, they would establish an interim government.

“If the government falls, we will definitely have an interim arrangement,” he said.

There would also need to be a national dialogue, he said, but Abiy and his ministers would not be asked to take part.

“They will have their day in court,” he said.

The government has also said it wants to take TPLF leaders to trial.

The TPLF has claimed the capture of Dessie, Kombolcha and Burka, all in the Amhara region, in recent days.

A government spokesperson disputed the capture of Dessie and and Kombolcha but later released a statement saying TPLF “infiltrators” had killed 100 youths in Kombolcha.

Spokespeople for the government, military and the Amhara region did not return calls seeking further comment on Tuesday.

On Monday night, Tigrayan forces said they had linked up with fighters from an Oromo force also fighting the central government. The Oromo are Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group. Many of their political leaders are currently in prison.

U.S. ALARM

The conflict in what was once considered a stable Western ally in a volatile region has plunged around 400,000 people in Tigray into famine, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2.5 million people in the north to flee their homes.

The U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa said on Tuesday Washington was alarmed by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the north and urged all sides to find ways to de-escalate and let aid in.

Jeffrey Feltman said Washington was seeing signs of famine and near-famine and that it was mostly government restrictions that were preventing humanitarian help from getting to people.

The government had denied blocking food aid.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration accused Ethiopia of “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” and said it planned to remove the country from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade agreement which gives it duty-free access to the United States.

When he first came to power, Abiy enacted significant political reforms but rights groups say many of those freedoms have since been rolled back.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending a long-running border conflict with Eritrea. Troops from Eritrea, whose president is an arch-enemy of the TPLF, later entered Tigray to support Ethiopian forces.

The Eritreans pulled back from most of Tigray in June after many reports of major human rights violations, but if they returned, their presence could slow the TPLF advance. The Eritreans denied responsibility for any abuses.

(Reporting by Addis Ababa newsroom, Maggie Fick and Katharine Houreld in Nairobi, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewisin Washignton; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Austrian army dogs join growing global pack of COVID-sniffers

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s army has successfully trained two dogs to sniff out COVID-19, it said on Tuesday, adding to a mass of evidence that dogs can be deployed to identify carriers of the virus.

Trials across the world from Thailand to Britain have found dogs can use their powerful sense of smell to detect the coronavirus with a high degree of accuracy, suggesting they could be regularly deployed as an additional line of safety at large events and border entry points.

Airports in Finland began deploying dogs to screen arrivals for COVID-19 last year.

Austrian authorities have now fully trained two dogs, a Belgian Shepherd and a Rottweiler, to detect the scent of COVID-19 after sniffing more than 3,000 samples including from used face masks, with a success rate “far above 80%”, Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner said.

“We have long known that our service dogs can sniff out various materials… But what we have achieved here is something very special,” she told a news conference.

It takes a dog with previous sniffer experience for other materials around two weeks to be able to tell which samples have COVID-19, and a further three months to fully train it, the head of the army’s dog-training center, Colonel Otto Koppitsch, told the news conference.

Austria has no specific plans to deploy dogs trained to detect COVID-19, but will help train people in other countries how to teach dogs this skill, Tanner said.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; editing by John Stonestreet)

Rescuers search for survivors after Lagos building collapse kills six

By Nneka Chile

LAGOS (Reuters) -Rescuers on Tuesday dug through rubble searching for survivors a day after a luxurious high-rise building collapsed while under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, as officials put the death toll at six and scores were reported missing.

Emergency services used earth moving equipment to lift chunks of masonry at the site in the affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi after torrential rains pounded Lagos overnight and briefly stopped the search. Large trailers were brought in to help move debris, blocking one of Ikoyi’s main roads.

Building collapses are frequent in Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.

“Currently all responders are on the ground as search and rescue is ongoing,” Lagos state official Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu said, adding that the death toll stood at six.

Seven people have so far been rescued alive as excavators sifted rubble from the heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal that engulfed the site where the building once stood.

Witnesses say up to 100 people were missing after the luxury residential structure crumbled, trapping workers under a pile of rubble.

President Muhammadu Buhari has called for rescue efforts to be stepped up.

Agitated families whose relatives and loved ones were missing refused to speak to media, although they could be heard accusing emergency services of lacking urgency after rescue efforts were briefly halted due to the rains.

New high-end apartments have been springing up in Ikoyi, and the collapsed building was part of three towers being built by private developer Fourscore Homes, where the cheapest unit was selling for $1.2 million.

The project developer and owner of Fourscore Homes, Olufemi Osibona told a local news channel in August that he had developed buildings in Peckham and Hackney in Britain and that the Ikoyi apartments were the start of bigger projects he planned in Nigeria.

Osibona could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. Some local media reports said he may have been among those trapped.

A narrator in a promotional video on Fourscore Homes Instagram page says the complex “bestrides the Ikoyi landscape like a colossus,” and showed the buildings as each having rooftop pools and being kitted out with luxury fittings.

Telephone calls to numbers listed for Fourscore Homes and the main building contractor did not ring through on Tuesday.

(Additional reporting by Libby George in Lagos and Chijioke Ohuocha in Abuja, Editing by Clarence Fernandez, William Maclean)

After George Floyd, Minneapolis voters weigh replacing police department

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – Minneapolis voters may decide on Tuesday to scrap their police force for a reimagined department that takes a holistic approach to crime and its causes, 18 months after the murder of George Floyd sparked global protests for racial justice.

Supporters say what the ballot calls a Department of Public Safety is badly needed after decades of failed attempts at police reforms.

Opponents in the city of some 430,000 people say it is a mistake for Minneapolis with crime on the rise. Policing needs to be more equitable, they say, but reforms should take place within the existing structure.

The city was thrust to the center of the U.S. racial justice debate in May 2020 when officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee against the neck of Floyd, a Black man, for more than nine minutes. Chauvin was sentenced in June to 22 1/2 years in prison.

Three other officers charged in Floyd’s death face trial in March.

Democrats, normally allies in the largely progressive Midwestern city, have split over the ballot question. Many fear dissolving the department will provide easy election fodder for Republicans nationwide ahead of November 2022 congressional elections.

Opposing the measure are Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo; Mayor Jacob Frey, up for reelection on Tuesday; U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Governor Tim Walz.

Some of the state’s best-known progressives – such as U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who oversaw Chauvin’s prosecution – support the change.

Nearly all of the dozens of Minneapolis residents interviewed last week said they were confused about how a new public safety department would operate, even those who support it.

If voters approve the creation of the new public safety department, the mayor and the city council would then analyze what type of support residents need – from armed officers responding to violent crimes to mental-health and addiction specialists to address situations where a traditional officer with a gun is not required.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)

Dozens killed and wounded as blasts and gunfire hit Kabul hospital

By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam

KABUL (Reuters) -At least 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in an attack on Afghanistan’s biggest military hospital on Tuesday which saw two heavy blasts followed up by gunmen assaulting the site in central Kabul, officials said.

The explosions took place at the entrance of the 400-bed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital and were followed immediately with an assault by a group of gunmen, Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi said.

Four of the attackers were killed by Taliban security forces and a fifth was captured, he said.

The blasts add to a growing list of attacks and killings since the Taliban completed their victory over the Western-backed government in August, undermining their claim to have restored security to Afghanistan after decades of war.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the operation was typical of the complex attacks mounted by Islamic State. It follows a string of bombings by the group which has emerged as the biggest threat to Taliban control of Afghanistan.

A Taliban security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 25 people had been killed and more than 50 wounded in the assault but there was no officially confirmed casualty toll.

Photographs shared by residents showed a plume of smoke over the area of the blasts near the former diplomatic zone in the Wazir Akbar Khan area of the city and witnesses said at least two helicopters flew over the area as the assault went on.

A health worker at the hospital, who managed to escape, said he heard a large explosion followed by a couple of minutes of gunfire. About ten minutes later, there was a second, larger explosion, he said.

He said it was unclear whether the blasts and the gunfire were inside the sprawling hospital complex.

Islamic State, which has carried out a series of attacks on mosques and other targets since the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul in August, mounted a complex attack on the hospital in 2017, killing more than 30 people.

The group’s attacks have caused mounting worries outside Afghanistan about the potential for the country to become a haven for militant groups as it was when an al Qaeda group attacked the United States in 2001.

The concern has been worsened by a spiraling economic crisis that has threatened millions with poverty as winter approaches and left thousands of former fighters with no employment.

The abrupt withdrawal of international support following the Taliban victory has brought Afghanistan’s fragile economy to the brink of collapse just as a severe drought has threatened millions with hunger.

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Islamabad newsroom; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Nick Macfie)

Language ‘speed dating’ attracts Jewish and Palestinian students in Jerusalem

By Rinat Harash

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A small group of Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem, a city of political, religious and cultural divisions, is trying to bridge a Hebrew-Arabic language gap through learning modelled on speed dating.

About 20 students meet weekly at a 19th-century villa, and sitting together, Jew facing Arab, they practice each other’s language, guided by cards spelling out simple scenarios that prompt dialogue.

When a whistle sounds every 20 minutes, participants rotate with new partners across tables arranged under colorful murals.

The encounters – quick and cordial, if sometimes awkward – help the Palestinians to improve the Hebrew required for dealing with Israeli authorities, and the Jews to deepen their grasp of Arabic.

Most Palestinians in Jerusalem live in its eastern sector, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Only basic Hebrew is studied in East Jerusalem schools, making it difficult for Palestinians to achieve advanced proficiency.

“And it’s the same for Israelis – if they do study Arabic, it’s an Arabic you can’t use,” said Maya Giz, a Hebrew teacher, referring to the classical, and not commonly spoken, version of the language.

Giz, who initiated the project in 2019 with Sahar Mukhemar, a Palestinian sports instructor and a former student of hers, says the language exercises are a “crossing of a mental border” between the two peoples.

She said Palestinians and Israelis taking part in the program share “the same embarrassment of talking and … (can) break this barrier of fear together”.

Jamila Khouri, a Palestinian, said learning Hebrew could help her and others “merge well in the community and find a job opportunity in a good field”.

Jewish participant Eli Benita said the language learning spoke volumes about coexistence, in a city where tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sometimes spill over into violence.

“I see that this is the only way to reach some kind of a peaceful routine of life here in this region we live in,” he said.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Ed Osmond)

Several workers trapped under collapsed high-rise in Nigeria -witnesses

By Nneka Chile

LAGOS (Reuters) – A luxury residential high-rise under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos collapsed on Monday, trapping several workers under a pile of concrete rubble, witnesses said.

Two workers at the site in the affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi, where many blocks of flats are under construction, told Reuters that possibly 100 people were at work when the building came crashing down.

Building collapses are frequent in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.

There were heaps of rubble and twisted metal where the 20-story building once stood, as several workers looked on. One man wailed, saying his relative was among those trapped.

It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse.

The building was part of three towers being built by private developer Fourscore Homes. In a brochure for potential clients, the company promises to offer “a stress-free lifestyle, complete with a hotel flair.” The cheapest unit was selling for $1.2 million.

Calls to the numbers listed for Fourscore Homes and the main building contractor did not ring through.

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency said it had activated its emergency response plan. “All first responders are at the scene while heavy duty equipment and life detection equipment have been dispatched,” the agency said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa, writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, editing by Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)