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DNA samples taken from US chess champion's corpse that was dug up in Iceland to determine whether he fathered Filipino girl...

One of the world's greatest chess geniuses, Bobby Fischer, has died at the age of 64. A spokesman for Fischer said the former world chess champion passed away in a Reykjavik hospital yesterday. The US-born former world chess champion, who became famous around the world for beating the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in 1972, had been seriously ill for some time. Rest in Peace, Bobby

Controversial former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died aged 64, Iceland's media says. The US-born player, who became famous around the world for beating the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in 1972, had been seriously ill for some time. Mr Fischer was granted Icelandic citizenship in 2005 as a way to avoid being deported the US. Mr Fischer was wanted for breaking international sanctions by playing a match in the former Yugoslavia in 1992. He also had alienated many in his homeland by broadcasting anti-Semitic diatribes and expressing support for the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York. The reclusive...

REYKJAVIK, Iceland ( — Bobby Fischer, the brilliant, troubled former chess champion, has died, a spokesman said Friday. He was 64. Fischer spokesman Gardar Sverrisson said Fischer died in a Reykjavik hospital on Thursday. There was no immediate word on cause of death. U.S.-born Fischer, a fierce critic of his homeland who renounced his U.S. citizenship, moved to Iceland in 2005. He was world famous for defeating the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in 1972. The Chicago-born, Brooklyn, N.Y.-reared Fischer was wanted in the United States for playing a 1992 rematch against Cold War rival Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of...

DOHA, Qatar (AP) - Bobby Fischer is still living the quiet life in Iceland, the home he adopted after being held in Japanese custody for nearly a year. He still refuses to play chess, at least the version that everybody else plays. And he's still a wanted man, as far as the U.S. government is concerned. Beyond that, there are many things the world may never know about the reclusive chess icon, and Miyoko Watai, Fischer's longtime companion, says she isn't going to break the silence. "I prefer not to talk about private things," said Watai, who is in Qatar...

Buchanan defends foreign aid – for Hamas-------------------------------------------------------- Posted: February 1, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. Ever since President Bush, sometime after 9-11, converted to neoconservatism, his Middle East policy has suffered from the triple defects of that subspecies of the Right: hubris, ideology and immaturity. Neoconservatives see the world as they wish it to be, not as it is. Like teenagers, they act on impulse and rail against the counsel of experience. "Often clever, never wise," Russell Kirk said of the breed. Repeatedly, Bush was warned by traditional conservatives that to send a U.S. army to...

SAN DIEGO – Bobby Fischer has dropped a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government over what the former chess champion called his illegal nine-month detention in Japan. The lawsuit was filed March 23, the same day Fischer was released from a Japanese detention center and took up residence in Iceland. The case was voluntarily dismissed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Diego. "He wants to get on with his life," Richard J. Vattuone, the attorney who filed the lawsuit told The San Diego Union-Tribune in Tuesday's editions. "He's not interested in any more lawsuits, so that matter is over,...

Mar 27, 2005 Bobby Fischer Latest in a Line of Individualist Immigrants to Iceland By Jill Lawless Associated Press Writer REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - New Icelandic citizen Bobby Fischer is volatile, uncompromising and defiantly eccentric. He should fit right in. Tiny, wind-lashed Iceland has long drawn artists, loners and dreamers attracted by its remoteness, empty spaces and otherworldly, lava-strewn landscape - the very conditions that kept most migrants away and helped forge the proud, independent Icelandic character. "What was it Buzz Aldrin said about the moon? 'Magnificent desolation' - that's Iceland," said Jose Tirado, a U.S.-born Buddhist priest who has...

"Let Iceland keep the sociopath" The United States has declared war on countries as varied as Albania and Canada. Well, not in real life, but in the movies. Maybe it's time to set our sights on Iceland. Not in real life — at least not yet. What has Iceland done to offend this country so grievously? It conferred citizenship on chess savant Bobby Fischer. That in itself may not seem like a big deal to people who only remember Fischer as the grandmaster who put the United States on the chess map by defeating Russian Boris Spassky for the world...

Bobby Fischer, so-called "chess master" best known for defeating the Soviet Boris Spassky in a chess match 33 years ago in Iceland, has finally been given citizenship by that country and was flown there yesterday from Japan. Fischer is wanted by the United States government for defying a warning not to play a chess match in Yugoslavia, which at the time had sanctions placed on it. He did it anyway, and he's been on the run ever since. For some reason, Fischer decided it would be a good idea to travel to Japan on an invalid U.S. passport. He was...

ABOARD SAS FLIGHT SK984 — Sitting in the first-class cabin whisking him away from nine months detention in Japan, chess icon Bobby Fischer (search) on Thursday launched a rambling diatribe against the United States, calling it "an illegitimate country" that should be given back to the American Indians. The reclusive Fischer — who is taking up residence in Iceland to avoid arrest in the United States — also unleashed his anger at Israel and likened President Bush (search) to a comic book character. Fischer said he was "kidnapped" in Japan, and that Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (search)...

Chess legend Bobby Fischer arrived in Iceland on Thursday, hoping to avoid deportation to the United States by accepting an offer of citizenship from a country still grateful for its role as the site of his most famous match. [. . .] In the interview, he unleashed an angry diatribe against the United States. "The United States is an illegitimate country...just like the bandit state of Israel - the Jews have no right to be there, it belongs to the Palestinians," said Fischer, whose mother was Jewish. "That country, the United States, belongs to the red man, the American Indian...It's...

ALARM - Bobby Fischer leaves Japan for Iceland TOKYO - the ex-champion of the American world of failures Bobby Fischer, held in Japan for eight month, flew away airport of Tokyo-Narita Thursday at the beginning of afternoon for Iceland, from which it obtained nationality, one learned near the airport authorities.

After nearly nine months of detention in an immigration facility north of Tokyo, chess legend Bobby Fischer appeared to have cleared the final hurdle Tuesday on his way to freedom. News photo Bobby Fischer In a major breakthrough for Fischer, who is being held for allegedly traveling on a revoked U.S. passport, Iceland's Parliament on Monday granted the former world champion and notorious eccentric full citizenship, opening the way for him to leave Japan for that country. "If he has (Icelandic) citizenship, I understand it is legally possible for him to leave Japan, and in the event of that situation,...

The United States demanded Tuesday that Japan hand over Bobby Fischer despite Iceland's move to accept the chess legend currently detained by Japanese immigration authorities since last July. "That's what we've asked for," Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told reporters, when asked if the United States wants Japan to hand him over to the United States. Ereli expressed "disappointment" about the Icelandic parliament's decision Monday to grant citizenship to Fischer, 62. "It's an arrangement that we're disappointed by. Mr. Fischer is a fugitive from justice. There is a federal warrant for his arrest. He's being...

BOBBY FISCHER, the former world chess champion incarcerated for the past nine months, may be freed this week after a diplomatic confrontation between Japan and Iceland. President Grimsson of Iceland is expected to sign into law today a Bill granting citizenship to Mr Fischer. It represents the culmination of an extraordinary campaign by Reykjavik to save Mr Fischer from deportation to the United States where he faces criminal prosecution. John Bosnitch, head of the Tokyo-based Committee to Free Bobby Fischer, said: “The Icelandic parliament, the Althingi, has . . . made history by standing up to the Earth’s sole superpower...

TOKYO, Japan -- Supporters of chess star Bobby Fischer prepared Tuesday for his release from Japanese custody after Iceland granted him citizenship overnight, boosting his chances of avoiding deportation to the United States. Miyoko Watai, Fischer's Japanese fiancee, was en route to the detention center outside Tokyo where he has been held to have his release papers signed, while his lawyer, Masako Suzuki, contacted the Justice Ministry to request his immediate release, said John Bosnitch, chairman of the Committee to Free Bobby Fischer in Japan. Japanese ministry and detention center officials declined to comment early Tuesday, and it was not...

Iceland to grant ex-chess champ Fischer citizenship Iceland's Parliament says it will grant fugitive chess master Bobby Fischer citizenship to allow him to travel to Reykjavik from Japan, where he is in detention fighting a US deportation order.The 62-year-old American is wanted in the United States for violating sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992.He was arrested in Japan last July for travelling on an invalid US passport.Chess fans in Iceland, where Fischer won the world title in 1972 in a classic Cold War encounter with Soviet champion Boris Spassky, offered him a...

HE was a master of strategy when it came to chess, but Bobby Fischer is being outplayed by the IRS. The former world champ, now a tax fugitive given to anti-American, anti-Semitic ravings, is spending his days in the East Japan Immigration Bureau Detention Center while he awaits extradition to the U.S. Fischer is waiting for an Icelandic passport, which would afford him sanctuary in Reykjavik. But Chesscafe.com reports Brooklyn-born Fischer, who hasn't filed tax forms since 1976, will lose his fortune regardless. "He can be tried in absentia and, with a series of computer key strokes, that juicy UBS...

TOKYO -- American chess champion Bobby Fischer should be freed immediately and allowed to leave Japan for Iceland rather than face deportation to the United States, his supporters said in a court filing Wednesday. Japan has ordered Fischer, 61, deported to the United States to faces charges of violating international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia, for playing chess there in 1992. The reclusive chess master has been in jail for six months, after his arrest at the Tokyo airport for trying to board a plane to the Philippines with an invalid U.S. passport, and as his immigration case has stalled....

Chess genius Bobby Fischer has lashed out against what he sees as doubts about his virility, boasted of being hugely endowed and claimed his incarceration near the site of Japan's worst nuclear accident is aimed at making him impotent. An apparently tongue-in-cheek Fischer alluded to an old wive's tale that says foot span is often seen as an indication of the length of a penis and pointed out that he wears size 14 shoes. Fischer, speaking from the East Japan Immigration Bureau Detention Center in Ushiku, Tochigi Prefecture, was slamming an article in the Aug. 30 edition of Time magazine...

Thursday, December 16, 2004 at 07:52 JST REYKJAVIK — Iceland said Wednesday it would give a residence permit to chess legend Bobby Fischer, who is being held by Japanese immigration authorities and the United States is seeking to extradite. "The Directory of Immigration has today confirmed that Mr Fischer's application has been approved. The Icelandic Embassy in Tokyo has been instructed to inform Mr Fischer about the decision," Iceland's foreign ministry said in a statement. In an interview aired on Icelandic television station Channel 2 on Monday, Fischer said he had written to Icelandic Foreign Minister David Oddsson requesting asylum....

-- WARNING -- Some people may find the material in this audio broadcast offensive

The Fischer defence By Andrew Alderson (Filed: 22/08/2004) Last week as Bobby Fischer languished in a detention centre in Japan, his new fiancee announced their impending nuptials. Andrew Alderson reports on the latest twist in the bizarre life of the former world chess champion who has gone from Cold War hero to one of America's Most Wanted. Bobby Fischer was deeply unhappy when a press photographer snatched a picture of him as he was being transferred to a new detention centre in Japan this month. Fischer, the greatest chess player ever, turned virtual recluse, was not worried, however, about being...

THE woman marrying Bobby Fischer, the chess legend threatened with deportation to the United States, reacted with shock yesterday to the news that he already has a common-law wife and a four-year-old daughter in the Philippines.Miyoko Watai, 59, acting president of the Japan Chess Association, said: "I didn’t know. Bobby has never told me this. "I have asked him in the past if he had a child and he never said anything. He told me that he is single." Fischer, 61, was arrested at Tokyo’s Narita Airport in July and is being held pending deportation for travelling on an expired...

Japan Chess Association President Miyoko Watai, left, listens to former world chess champion Bobby Fischer's attorney Masako Suzuki during a press conference in Tokyo. Fischer, who has been held by Japanese immigration authorities for allegedly traveling with a revoked U.S. passport at Narita International Airport near Tokyo in July, has appealed to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to help him renounce U.S. citizenship as he announced plans to marry leading Japanese chess official Watai, Suzuki said. Fischer, wanted in the United States for allegedly violating international sanctions on the former Yugoslavia, has been fighting attempts to have him deported...

TOKYO (AP) - Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer faxed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.S. Embassy in Japan on Monday demanding that a consular official accept his renunciation of U.S. citizenship, his Japanese lawyer said. Fischer, wanted in the United States on charges of violating international sanctions on the former Yugoslavia by playing a match there, also plans to marry the president of Japan's chess association, Fischer lawyer Masako Suzuki said. Fischer has been held in Japan since last month for trying to travel on a revoked U.S. passport, and has appealed a...

Russian-born Boris Spassky, an old rival of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, has called on Washington to show mercy for Fischer, who is wanted by the United States for defying its sanctions, Reuters reported, citing Fischer’s lawyer. In a letter purportedly written by Spassky and made available to the media by Masako Suzuki, a lawyer working on Fischer’s case, Spassky called on U.S. President George W. Bush to be lenient towards Fischer, whom he described as a “tragic personality.” “I would not like to defend or justify Bobby Fischer. He is what he is,” Reuters quoted the letter said....

Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted by Washington for defying sanctions on Yugoslavia, plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship, a lawyer working on his appeal against deportation from Japan said on Friday. Fischer, one of the chess world's great eccentrics, was detained at Tokyo's Narita airport last month when he tried to leave for Manila on a passport U.S. officials say was invalid. Japanese immigration officials rejected Fischer's initial appeal against deportation and his lawyer, Masako Suzuki, has filed a second plea to Justice Minister Daizo Nozawa. In a handwritten note made available to the media, Fischer, 61, said...

TOKYO - Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, detained in Japan for allegedly traveling with a revoked U.S. passport, wants to renounce his American citizenship, his lawyer said Friday. Fischer called the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo from detention at Narita airport outside the capital to tell U.S. officials his demands, his lawyer Masako Suzuki told reporters at a news conference. Suzuki said she would submit a letter to the embassy on Fischer's behalf, and an embassy official will meet him to confirm his intentions. "I no longer wish to be an American citizen. Enough is enough," he said in a...

TOKYO - Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has appealed Japanese plans to deport him to the United States and hopes to find political asylum in a third country, a friends said Wednesday. Fischer was detained by Japanese immigration officials last week after trying to leave the country for the Philippines. Officials say his passport was invalid, and on Tuesday confirmed that he was being processed for deportation. Fischer is wanted in the United States for playing a rematch against Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992. Yugoslavia was under international sanctions at the time, and U.S....

July 20, 2004 Japan to deport Bobby Fischer By ERIC TALMADGE NARITA, Japan (AP) - The Japanese government is preparing to deport chess legend Bobby Fischer for staying in this country on an invalid passport, immigration officials said Tuesday. Fischer was detained at the international airport in this city just outside of Tokyo last Tuesday after trying to board a flight for Manila, Philippines. Immigration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Fischer, 61, has been held in their custody since, and said he was being processed for deportation. They refused to give further details, but said he could...

The stunning news of Bobby Fischer's detention in Japan came at a moment in which the American former world chess champion was already very much on my mind. I am currently finishing the fourth of my six-volume series on the game's great players and it is precisely this volume of which Robert James Fischer, forever known as Bobby, is the star. This project has involved going over hundreds of Fischer's chess games in minute detail. It also means trying to understand the man behind the moves and the era in which he made them. Despite his short stay at the...

<p>The chess community in New York expressed mixed views on the arrest in Japan of Bobby Fischer, the Brooklyn-raised reclusive former world chess champion, on charges of traveling on a revoked U.S. passport.</p> <p>Fischer, 61, was arrested last week by Japanese immigration officials as he tried to fly out of Tokyo's Narita Airport to the Philippines using a passport that the U.S. government reportedly revoked last year.</p>

Search for Bobby Fischer Ends at Japanese Airport, With Fugitive Chess King Captured Eric Talmadge/Associated Press TOKYO (AP) - In a bizarre end game, Bobby Fischer - the chess world's most eccentric star - was taken into custody after trying to fly out of Japan with an invalid passport. Checkmate. Wanted at home for attending a 1992 match in Yugoslavia despite international sanctions, the American former world champion had managed to stay one move ahead of the law by living abroad and being sheltered by chess devotees. It was not immediately clear if Fischer would be handed over to the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US State Department was tightlipped on the fate of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, detained in Japan and wanted on a 12-year-old US warrant charging him with violating an international commercial embargo on the former Yugoslavia. "There's a limit to what I can say about the situation of Mr Fischer because of the Privacy Act," spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. "We don't have permission in terms of a Privacy Act waiver to release any further information on Mr Fischer." The Privacy Act gives persons in custody the option, before they are formally charged, of having...

Japanese Immigration Officials Detain Former World Chess Champ Bobby Fischer at Tokyo Airport Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted since 1992 for playing a tournament in Yugoslavia despite U.N. sanctions, was detained in Japan for an apparent passport violation and will be deported to the United States, media reports said. Fischer, was stopped at Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Tuesday as he tried to go to the Philippines, an airport official said on condition of anonymity. The Kyodo News agency said he was detained for allegedly using an invalid U.S. passport. Kyodo and the Asahi newspaper reported officials were...

It is unlikely that a man stranger and more mysterious than the American Bobby Fischer ever was, is or will ever appear in the chess world. He is a man about whom legends are composed already during his life. But it is more frequent that no news is available about Fischer at all. The man is elusive. Nobody can say for sure where Bobby Fischer has been living within over the past decades, or whether he is still alive at all. He was to celebrate his 60th birthday this March. The great chess player is some a kind of a...

TOKYO (AP) - Immigration authorities have detained former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in Japan, an official said Friday. Fischer, wanted in the United States for attending a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions, was stopped at Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Tuesday, an airport spokesman said on condition of anonymity. Fischer, 61, was trying to leave Japan for the Philippines, the spokesman said. He refused to elaborate, citing Fischer's privacy. Officials were preparing to deport him to the United States, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said Friday, citing unnamed sources. The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said...

Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame Paranoia, hubris, and hatred—the unraveling of the greatest chess player ever by Rene Chun ..... Bobby Fischer was singing the blues. As he wailed along with a 1965 recording by Jackie ("Mr. Excitement") Wilson, his voice—a gravelly baritone ravaged by age but steeled by anger—rumbled through the microphone like a broken-down freight train on rusty wheels: "You go walking down Broadway, watchin' people catch the subway! Take it from me, don't ask for a helping hand, mmm, 'cause no one will understand!" With each note he became increasingly strident. "Bright lights will find you, and they...

Bobby Fischer was singing the blues. As he wailed along with a 1965 recording by Jackie ("Mr. Excitement") Wilson, his voice—a gravelly baritone ravaged by age but steeled by anger—rumbled through the microphone like a broken-down freight train on rusty wheels: "You go walking down Broadway, watchin' people catch the subway! Take it from me, don't ask for a helping hand, mmm, 'cause no one will understand!" With each note he became increasingly strident. "Bright lights will find you, and they will mess you around! Let me tell you, millions will watch you! Have mercy now, as you sink right...

“It’s wonderful news. It’s time to do away with the USA once and for all.” The chess champion said that at first he didn’t believe that it really happened, that all the crimes America had committed all over the world returned to haunt it. He said: “I applaud the terrorist act. The USA and Israel have been killing Palestinians for many years. Now they get what they deserve.” Therefore, it is no wonder that the FBI has always kept an eye on the Fishers. http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/18/39617.html