Read what is in the news today:

Politics

-- Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong affirmed his country appreciates the strategic partnership with Vietnam during a phone conversation with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Wednesday.

Society

-- Vietnam documented two imported cases of COVID-19 in Ho Chi Minh City and southern Long An Province together with one domestic infection in northern Hai Duong Province on Wednesday evening, raising the national caseload to 2,529 patient, with 2,004 recoveries and 35 virus-related deaths.

-- Northern Hung Yen Province is slated to be the fifth locality in Vietnam to begin COVID-19 vaccination on Thursday, with the allocation of AstraZeneca vaccine shots from the 117,600 doses that Vietnam currently has.

-- Medical authorities in northern Hai Phong City have managed to trace 13 people in direct contact with and 35 others linked to a Vietnamese woman and her son, both of whom had tested negative for the novel coronavirus on February 26 and flew to Australia on February 28 but later retested positive. The 13 direct contacts’ test results have returned negative as of Thursday morning.

-- The Ministry of Health has issued a warning over fraudulent offerings of COVID-19 vaccine.

-- A serial traffic accident taking place between a tractor-trailer, a truck, a pickup truck, and a motorbike on the section of National Highway 51 passing through Long Thanh District in southern Dong Nai Province late on Wednesday afternoon injured two women and caused heavy congestion on the route from southern Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province to Dong Nai.

-- The Ministry of Planning and Investment is seeking Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s in-principle approval for the Airports Corporation of Vietnam’s investment of nearly VND1.55 trillion (US$67.4 million) in expanding Dien Bien Airport in Dien Bien City, located in the namesake northern province, increasing its capacity to 500,000 passengers a year.

-- Temperatures in southern Vietnamese localities are forecast to exceed 35 degrees Celsius and reach 37 degrees Celsius from Thursday to Monday next week, according to the Southern Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

Sports

-- “Liverpool brushed aside their domestic woes to beat RB Leipzig 2-0 in their Champions League last-16 second leg on Wednesday and cruise into the quarter-finals,” AFP reported.

-- Saigon FC became an official member of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Ho Chi Minh City (JCCH) on Wednesday. The Vietnamese football club are the first foreign football team in the world to join the overseas network of Japanese companies.

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