Read what is in the news today:

Politics

-- Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong sent his best wishes to all of the Vietnamese people, both inside and outside the country, as the traditional Lunar New Year is due.

-- Chairwoman of the Lao National Assembly (NA) Pany Yathotou paid a visit on Thursday to officers and soldiers of Army Corps 11 of the Vietnam People’s Army who are working on the construction of the Lao NA House, on the occasion of the Lunar New Year festival.

Society

-- Vietnam reported no new case of COVID-19 on Friday morning. The national tally stood at 2,140 patients, with 1,531 recoveries and 35 virus-related deaths.

-- Authorities in Ward 8, District 8 of Ho Chi Minh City on late Thursday evening issued an urgent notification to look for visitors to Quang Trung Hotel at 1118 Quang Trung Street from 11:00 pm January 30 to 9:00 am January 31 and 11:00 pm February 5 to 9:00 am February 6 as COVID-19 patient No. 2,018 stayed there during these time periods.

-- Lockdowns were lifted from the Circle K store at 16 Ap Bac Street and the Co.op Food store at 12A Tran Van Danh Street in Ward 13, Tan Binh District and the 'Giac mo sua Viet' store at 114A Hoang Hoa Tham Street in Ward 12 in the same district on Thursday, according to the Ho Chi Minh Center for Disease Control.

-- Ho Chi Minh City police officers on Thursday said that they had seized more than 200kg of firecrackers of all kinds and prosecuted eight related people on charges of storing, transporting, buying and selling, and using illegal firecrackers during the ongoing Lunar New Year, or Tet holiday.

-- Prohibited firecrackers were blatantly set off across many localities in Vietnam during this Tet, especially on Lunar New Year’s Eve.

Business

-- Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways announced its pre-tax profit of over VND400 billion (US$17.38 million) in 2020, up 34 percent year-on-year.

-- Honda Vietnam reported year-on-year surges of four percent and 57.4 percent in motorbike and automobile sales in January.

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