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Japan
Detains Ex-Chess Champ Bobby Fischer
Japanese
Immigration Officials Detain Former World Chess Champ Bobby
Fischer at Tokyo Airport
The
Associated Press
TOKYO
July 16, 2004 —
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 preparing to deport him
to the United States.
The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said it knew Fischer had been
detained but refused to comment further, citing privacy
concerns.
Fischer became a Cold War hero in 1972 when he defeated
Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union to become the first
American world chess champion. But the chess prodigy, long
know for his eccentric ways, stunned the chess world by
refusing to play again, and had slipped mysteriously in and
out of public view in the years since.
He forfeited the title in 1975, and resurfaced for a
dramatic rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992,
beating him 10-5 to win $3.35 million.
U.S. authorities accused him of violating U.N. sanctions
imposed against Yugoslavia by playing the match. The
sanctions were imposed on Yugoslavia for provoking warfare
in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Fischer, indicted by a grand jury in 1992, managed to elude
authorities and left a tantalizing trail that included
radio broadcasts from the Philippines and sightings in
Japan.
In radio interviews, he praised the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, saying America should be "wiped out," and
described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards." His mother
was Jewish.
Fischer, now 61 years old, became grandmaster at age 15. He
announced that he had abandoned chess in 1996 and launched
a new version, "Fischerandom," a computerized shuffler that
randomly distributes chess pieces on the back row of the
chess board at the start of each game.
Fischer claimed it would bring the fun back into the game
and rid it of cheats.
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November 21, 2004
http://vvdailypress.com/2004/110105861147848.html
City says
kids' fort must go
By
GRETCHEN LOSI/Staff Writer
HESPERIA — The innocent days of boys building forts
in their back yard may be a fond memory for Dad and
Grandpa, but for 12-year-olds James and John Crigler, the
experience has been a disheartening lesson in local
bureaucracy.
The boys worked for days building the fort in their own
back yard.
Then Hesperia Code Enforcement officials told the family to
tear it down.
"I don't understand why," the boys father Mark Crigler
said. "The city has meth labs and gangs moving in all over.
Our tax dollars could be spent on something more important
than picking on little boys who build forts in their back
yards."
In September, the brothers and their neighborhood friends
cleaned up the plywood and two-by-fours from a neighboring
vacant lot. Mark Crigler supplied them with a hammer and
bag of nails and the boys got to work building their new
playhouse.
One month later they received a notice of violation,
instructing the family to get rid of it.
"Most people would thank the kids for doing the city's job
and cleaning up an empty lot," the boys' father Mark
Crigler said. "They took the scraps and built themselves a
fort and now we're being (punished) for it."
The notice of violation demands the removal of all "carpet,
plywood and debris," from the yard. Mark Crigler said the
only carpet and plywood on his property is found in the
boy's fort.
City spokeswoman Kimberley Summers said the issue is a
simple safety concern.
"The Code Enforcement officer said she knows it's just a
kids playhouse, but it isn't safe," Summers said. "The
reason he was cited was a safety issue and nothing else."
Mark Crigler said his family will continue to take a firm
stand against the city.
"This is a fort my sons built in our yard, private
property," Mark Crigler said. "How can the city tell us we
have to tear it down?"
He said he has wanted to ask Deputy Director of
Developmental Services Tom Harp that question since first
receiving the notice.
Crigler said he has left several phone messages asking Harp
to call him and made three different trips to City Hall to
meet with Harp, but said that each time he was turned away.
__________________
As
we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know
we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to
say we know there are some things we do not know. But there
are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't
know.
--Donald Rumsfeld, Feb 12,
2002
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