THE FATHER of US chess grandmaster Gata Kamsky said yesterday he was asking the US State Department for permission for his son to play a world championship match in Iraq.
International Chess Federation president Kirsan Iljumzhinov dropped a political bombshell on the chess world on Thursday when he said that the match between Kamsky (21) and Anatoly Knrpov of Russia would be held in Bagdhad starting on June 1st.
Although the US has no relations with Iraq, its citizens and legal residents are not forbidden to travel there. But they require a special US government validation in their passport and may not spend American money there.
Singapore patriarch Lee Kuan Yew (72) is to undergo heart treatment for the second time in less than three months.
A top US heart specialist will return to Singapore next Friday to perform an operation on an artery that appears to have narrowed again.
Lee, prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990 and now Senior Minister, had suffered pains which doctors traced to constricted blood supply due to a narrowed coronary artery.
Apollo 13 has won best film and its star Tom Hanks was named best actor at the 22nd annual People's Choice Awards, a fans' popularity contest for film, television and music in Los Angeles.
Sandra Bullock was named best actress, and Seinfeld and ER best television shows.
Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro yesterday officially reopened a tower in the heart of Florence that was destroyed by a Mafia bomb attack in 1993.
"Violence serves only to condemn those who promote it," Mr Scalfaro said in a speech after unveiling a plaque at the Torre dei Pulci.
Five people were killed in the May 1993 car bomb attack, which also severely damaged part of the city's Uffizi Gallery.