New Zealand PM orders independent inquiry into massacre of Muslims

Washington, Jul 5: US President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his wishes on America's 244th Independence Day.

On Saturday, PM Modi tweeted: "I congratulate @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and the people of the USA on the 244th Independence Day of the USA. As the world's largest democracies, we cherish freedom and human enterprise that this day celebrates. @WhiteHouse"

While replying to PM Modi's wishes, Mr Trump tweeted: "Thank you my friend. America loves India!"

The US President also attended the July 4 American Independence Day celebrations in South Dakota.

New Delhi, Mar 24: Reports of a person in China dying due to a virus called hantavirus have spread panic at a time when the world is battling the pandemic of novel coronavirus, which began in China.

The novel coronavirus has killed over 16,000 people around the world and the outbreak is yet to be brought under control.

This morning, hantavirus became one of the top trends on Twitter after the Chinese state media tweeted about one person in the country dying due the virus. However, it turns out, hantavirus is not a new virus and has been infecting humans for decades.

Global Times, a state-run English-language newspaper, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, "A person from Yunnan Province died while on his way back to Shandong Province for work on a chartered bus on Monday. He was tested positive for hantavirus. Other 32 people on bus were tested."

Global Times's hantavirus report on Twitter has been shared over 6,000 times.

On Tuesday, hantavirus was one of the top trends on Twitter.

WHAT IS HANTAVIRUS?

Some people are calling it a new virus but so is not the case. United States's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in a journal writes that currently, the hantavirus genus includes more than 21 species.

"Hantaviruses in the Americas are known as 'New World' hantaviruses and may cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome [HPS]," CDC says. "Other hantaviruses, known as 'Old World' hantaviruses, are found mostly in Europe and Asia and may cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome [HFRS]."

Any man, woman, or child who is around mice or rats that carry harmful hantaviruses can get HPS.

People get HPS when they breath in hantaviruses. This can happen when rodent urine and droppings that contain a hantavirus are stirred up into the air. People can also become infected when they touch mouse or rat urine, droppings, or nesting materials that contain the virus and then touch their eyes, nose, or mouth. They can also get HPS from a mouse or rat bite.

In the US, 10 confirmed cases of hantavirus infection in people who visited Yosemite National Park in California, US, in November 2012, were reported. Similarly, in 2017, CDC assisted health officials in investigating an outbreak of Seoul virus infection that infected 17 people in seven states.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF HANTAVIRUS?

If people get HPS, they will feel sick one to five weeks after they were around mice or rats that carried a hantavirus.

At first people with HPS will have:

Fever
Severe muscle aches
Fatigue

After a few days, they will have a hard time breathing. Sometimes people will have headaches, dizziness, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and stomach pain.

Usually, people do not have a runny nose, sore throat, or a rash.

Hundreds of thousands of people across the world are joining the anti-racism demonstrations days after the killing of George Floyd in United Sates. 

The protests are being held in cities including London, Manchester, Cardiff, Leicester and Sheffield.

Demonstrators attached ropes to the statue of Edward Colston before pulling it down to cheers and roars of approval from the crowd. Images on social media show the statue was eventually rolled into the city's harbour. 

It was not the only statue targeted on Sunday. In Brussels, protesters clambered onto the statue of former King Leopold II and chanted "reparations".

The word "shame" was also graffitied on the monument, reference perhaps to the fact that Leopold is said to have reigned over the mass death of 10 million Congolese.

In London, thousands of people congregated around the US embassy for the second day running.

While protests were mainly peaceful, there were some scuffles near the office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and outside the Parliament gates.

In Hong Kong, about 20 people staged a rally in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Sunday outside the US consulate in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

"It's a global issue," Quinland Anderson, a 28-year-old British citizen living in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press news agency.

"We have to remind ourselves despite all we see going on in the US and in the other parts of the world, Black lives do indeed matter."

Several dozen demonstrators took part in a Black Lives Matter protest held in Tel Aviv's central Rabin Square.

A rally in Rome's sprawling People's Square was noisy but peaceful, with the majority of protesters wearing masks to protect against coronavirus. Participants listened to speeches and held up handmade placards saying "Black Lives Matter" and "It's a White Problem".

In Spain, several thousand people gathered on the streets of Barcelona and at the US embassy in Madrid.

Many in Madrid carried homemade signs reading "Black Lives Matter", "Human rights for all" and "Silence is pro-racist".

"We are not only doing this for our brother George Floyd," said Thimbo Samb, a spokesman for the group that organised the events in Spain mainly through social media. "Here in Europe, in Spain, where we live, we work, we sleep and pay taxes, we also suffer racism."