Briefly

BRAZIL

Former national coach has coronavirus

The head coach of the Brazilian football club Palmeiras Vanderlei Luxemburgo is the latest football manager to test positive for the novel coronavirus. The 68-year-old former Real Madrid and Brazil boss posted a video on Instagram on Saturday to assure fans that he is well and confident of a prompt return to work. Luxemburgo said he had been put in quarantine but that he has no symptoms or pain. Other football managers to have tested positive for the virus include Mikel Arteta of Arsenal, Brendan Rodgers of Leicester City and Fatih Terim of the Turkish club Galatasaray. Luxemburgo is the most successful manager in the history of Brazil's top flight, with five Serie A titles, including back-to-back triumphs with Palmeiras in 1993 and 1994. He was Brazil's national team manager from 1998 to 2000 and had an 11-month spell in charge of Real Madrid in 2005.

DPRK

Pyongyang sees no need for talks with US

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea does "not feel any need" to resume talks with Washington, a senior diplomat for the country said on Saturday, days after Seoul called for a summit as it seeks improved ties with Pyongyang. The statement by the vice-foreign minister of the DPRK Choe Sonhui came after former US national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday reportedly said President Donald Trump may seek another meeting with leader Kim Jong-un in October. President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jaein, who has long backed engagement with the DPRK, last week also called for another meeting between Kim and Trump, saying the ROK would be doing its utmost to make it happen. But Pyongyang does "not feel any need to sit face to face with the US", Choe said in a statement carried by the DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency.

UNITED STATES

Man in 9/11 photo dies of COVID-19

A man photographed fleeing smoke and debris as the south tower of the World Trade Center crumbled just a block away on Sept 11, 2001, has died from coronavirus, his family said. The Palm Beach Post on Saturday reported that Stephen Cooper, an electrical engineer from New York who lived part-time in the Delray Beach, Florida area, died on March 28 at Delray Medical Center due to COVID-19. He was 78. The photo, was published in newspapers and magazines around the world and is featured at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York. It shows Cooper, who was around 60 at the time, with a manila envelope tucked under his left arm. He and several other men were in a desperate sprint as a wall of debris from the collapsing tower looms behind them. Suzanne Plunkett, the Associated Press photographer who snapped the shot, wrote that she had been in touch with two of the people in the photo, but Cooper was not among them.

Agencies - Xinhua