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GONE: Jose Mourinho has been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur after 17 months in the job. AFP/VNA Photo

Paul Kennedy

LONDON  Tottenham Hotspur Football Club yesterday sacked manager Jose Mourinho.

The bombshell dismissal comes less than a week before Tottenham are set to take on Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley.

Spurs have struggled in 2021, slipping down the Premier League and also crashing out of the Europa League.

The Portuguese boss, who also managed Porto, Chelsea twice, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United, had been manager at White Hart Lane for 17 months.

A statement released via the Tottenham website read: “The Club can announce that Jose Mourinho and his coaching staff Joao Sacramento, Nuno Santos, Carlos Lalin and Giovanni Cerra have been relieved of their duties.

“Ryan Mason will take First Team training today and a further update will follow in due course.”

Chairman Daniel Levy added: “Jose and his coaching staff have been with us through some of our most challenging times as a Club.

“Jose is a true professional who showed enormous resilience during the pandemic. On a personal level I have enjoyed working with him and regret that things have not worked out as we both had envisaged.

“He will always be welcome here and we should like to thank him and his coaching staff for their contribution.”

The sacking comes just a day after Tottenham announced they would be joining the breakaway European Super League along with Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City, as well as six other teams from Spain and Italy.

There is no confirmation Mourinho’s departure is connected to the controversial move to join the elite European competition,

Mourinho replaced Mauricio Pochettino in November 2019 and had a contract until the end of the 2022-23 season.

A permanent replacement for ex-Chelsea and Manchester United boss Mourinho is expected to be named in the summer.

RB Leipzig boss Julian Nagelsmann is favourite to take over in north London, according to bookmakers Betfair.

Leicester City’s Brendan Rodgers is second favourite and links have also been made to former Spurs defender Ledley King, Glasgow Rangers manager Steven Gerrard and former Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri. VNS

Mercedes’ Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas holds an umbrella at the Mercedes area after the practice session was cancelled due to bad weather conditions at the Nuerburgring circuit in Nuerburg, western Germany, on October 9, 2020, ahead of the German Formula One Eifel Grand Prix.(WOLFGANG RATTAY / POOL / AFP)

Talking to reporters at the Eifel Grand Prix Wolff said both drivers were confined to their rooms after rain and fog forced the cancellation of opening practice.

“They are the most restricted of the whole group, of the whole team,” said Wolff, who confirmed that Mercedes had flown six replacement staff to Germany on Thursday after the team was re-tested, resulting in six team members going into isolation.

“It’s certainly not a great situation for them because you need almost to live like a hermit – and that is what they are doing.

“They are at home, they are not going out for dinners and they are not meeting other people. When we do de-briefs, by Zoom or Microsoft Teams, they are not sitting their engineers in the room.

“They are in their own rooms and we are all avoiding as much as possible any personal contact. It’s just literally stepping into the car and then driving the car and keeping distance.”

Wolff said he believed Mercedes had the outbreak under control.

“Every loss of an important member in the garage affects the race, but I think we’ve got it under control,” he said.

The team had announced on Thursday that one person from their travelling race team had record a positive test ahead of this weekend’s race at Nurburgring.

As a result, the team re-tested everyone at the circuit, an exercise that resulted in another positive test and one that was inconclusive.

Both of those team members were immediately put into isolation along with four others.

The team flew six reserve staff to Germany on Thursday, a decision that maintained the numbers at the track, but has thrown the champions’ race preparations into difficulty.

Six-time world champion Hamilton who is making a second attempt to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 Grand Prix victories, described the events as “a concern”.

Speaking on Thursday, he said: “It’s sad to hear, for the guys that work so hard. We obviously had this week in between [races] and those guys work so hard to stay safe and be here on the weekends.”

Mercedes said they are following strictly all of the protocols laid down by the sport’s ruling body the International Motoring Federation (FIA), adding that they are not releasing any further information.

AFP

A cultural festival celebrating Hung Kings, known as the country’s founders, will begin on Sunday (April 18) in HCM City and Thu Duc City. Photo suoitien.com

The event opened with a series of traditional games and sports, and cooking competitions at the Hung Kings memorial area located in the Park of Culture and National History in Thu Duc City.

The main ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the kings’ death will be organised on the 10th day of the third month of the lunar calendar, which falls on Wednesday this year.

It will include incense-offering rituals dedicated to the Hung Kings, the National Father Lac Long Quan and National Mother Au Co, hosted by officials from the People’s Party Committee, People’s Committee and Motherland Front Committee.

A special exhibition of pictures and ancient objects featuring the country’s history and culture in different periods is being held.

Folk music and martial arts performances, staged by artists of leading traditional art troupes in the region, will be organised during the ceremony.

Vietnamese songs and instrumental music pieces will be performed. Patriotism, peace, love, youth and spring will be the shows’ themes.

In HCM City, a youth camp called Tự Hào Nòi Giống Tiên Rồng (Proudly Our Legends) with university students will open at 8am on Thursday at the Tao Dan Cultural Park in District 3.

As per tradition, Suoi Tien and Dam Sen parks in districts 9 and 11 will hold events for visitors to pay tribute to the Hung Kings.

The HCM City Book Fair will also open on Nguyen Van Binh Street on Tuesday and Wednesday. The fair will display several thousands of book titles from four local major publishers and book distributors, including the HCM City Book Distribution Corporation and Phuong Nam Books.

Many books will feature topics on Vietnamese history and culture.

“I always visit Tao Dan Park on Hung Kings Memorial Festival every year to offer flowers and incense to commemorate the kings. I wish good health for my family members and prosperity for the whole country,” said Ly Van Chung, a resident of HCM City.

As per tradition, Suoi Tien and Dam Sen parks in districts 9 and 11 will hold events for visitors to pay tribute to the Hung Kings. Photo suoitien.com

According to Vietnamese legend, Lac Long Quan, the son of Kinh Duong Vuong, married Au Co, the daughter of King De Lai. Au Co then gave birth to a sack containing 100 eggs from which 100 children were born.

The couple then decided to separate in order to populate the land. Half of the children followed their mother to the highlands, while the rest went with their father to the sea.

The first child went with his mother Au Co to Phong Chau, now Phu Tho Province. He then became King Hung I and founded Van Lang, the first recorded state in the history of Vietnam.

Ruling the country for 18 generations, the Hung Kings taught the people how to grow wet rice. They chose Nghia Linh Mountain, the highest in the region, to perform rituals devoted to rice and sun deities to pray for lush crops.

In Phu Tho, the annual Hung Kings Memorial Festival or Hung KingsTemple Festival, hosted by the province’s government, is organised from the 6th to 10th day of the third month of the lunar year.

The event consists of various ceremonies and entertaining activities for tourists and pilgrims nationwide.

VNS

The Australian Embassy in Hanoi and UNICEF on Monday unveiled a landmark A$13.5 million (US$10.5 million) package to help support the successful introduction and delivery of COVID-19 vaccine doses in Vietnam.

The Australia-UNICEF partnership will provide a unique and holistic package that will assist Vietnam across a range of areas that are vital to the successful delivery of a mass immunization program against the coronavirus, the UN body said in a press release the same day.

“Our support will help Vietnam purchase cold chain equipment to store and transport vaccine doses to where they are needed around the country, provide training courses and materials to ensure Vietnam’s health workers and officials are ready, and assist with the development of immunization plans in Vietnam’s remote provinces to ensure equitable and uniform vaccine coverage,” Robyn Mudie, Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, was quoted as saying in the press release.

Introducing a new vaccine especially for COVID-19 is a colossal task for any government with many important steps involved, said Rana Flowers, UNICEF representative in Vietnam.

UNICEF is committed to working with the Vietnamese Ministry of Health and other partners to support the introduction and roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines in Vietnam, thanks to the partnership with the Australian government, Flowers added.

“No one is safe until everyone is safe, so mass vaccination against COVID-19 is an important step to contain the pandemic, protect frontline workers who serve children and for Vietnam to reopen to the rest of the world,” she remarked.

The package will help Vietnam reach the prioritized 20 percent of its population by the end of 2022 and set the foundation necessary for immunizing the remainder as vaccines are rolled out nationwide.

Funding is drawn from Australia’s A$523.2 million ($407 million) regional Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative, as well as from its bilateral development cooperation program with Vietnam.

In total, Australia has committed A$40 million ($31 million) over three years to support Vietnam’s vaccine procurement and delivery efforts.

On April 1, 811,200 AstraZeneca doses arrived in Vietnam as part of 30 million shots the COVAX scheme had promised to supply to the country free of charge this year.

The COVAX scheme is a facility co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines as well as ensure fair and equitable access for every country.

The Southeast Asian country received the first-ever shipment of 117,600 AstraZeneca shots via direct purchase from the eponymous company on February 24.

The government has vaccinated over 79,000 people since it launched the national inoculation campaign on March 8, according to the Ministry of Health.

Vietnam has registered 2,791 coronavirus patients as of Monday evening, including 2,475 recoveries and and 35 deaths, according to the health ministry’s data.

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Oil painting entitled Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong (Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong) by painter Mai Trung Thu

By Kim Loan – Translated by Kim Khanh