One World. One Vision
The FIDE President arrived in Singapore on a working visit where he met with the FIDE General Secretary, President of the local Chess Federation Ignatius Leong. During their discussion the issues of Chess in Schools programme as well as chess development and popularization in the region were touched upon.
FIDE Vice President Zurab Azmaiparashvili took part in the meeting, who reported on the results of his inspection trip to Khanty-Mansiysk, where in September Chess Olympiad shall start.
The FIDE President , Head of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov arrived in Vietnam on a working visit. At the airport Thang Shon Niat he was met by the President of the country Nguyen Minh Triet, the Secretary of the City Council Le Thanh Hai and the Mayor of Ho Chi Minh Le Hoang Quan as well as high officials of the President’s Administration and Foreign Ministry.
The President’s programme has been very tight and resulted in very important news. Now Vietnam shall be part of the FIDE Chess in Schools programme. First the wisest game shall be taught in several provinces of the country.
Should the pilot programme be successful, chess will become part of the comprehensive curriculum of Vietnam.
The FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has kept all his promises given during his working visits of this summer. Let’s remind you that in August he inaugurated two tournaments – the 1st UMADA Cup (Trinidad and Tobago, prize fund 40000 USD) and the 1st Latin America Cup (Cuzco, Peru, prize fund 60000 USD). Now it was the turn of the largest Asian tournament – the 1st Florencio Campomanes Memorial.
Two months ago during his working meeting in Manila Mr. Ilyumzhinov proposed the organization and financing of a tournament with an unprecedented prize fund of 1 mln USD to grace the memory of his predecessor, the 5th FIDE President Florencio Campomanes – told Prospero A. Pichay Jr, President of the Philippines Chess Federation. – We gratefully embarked on the realization of the President’s idea. We had a beautiful idea – 10 tournaments in 10 years in 10 ASEAN countries, with each of the tournaments having a 100, 000 USD prize fund.
The opening ceremony was touching and beautiful. All the speakers (among them – President of the Philippines National Olympic Committee Jose Cojuangco, President of the Philippines Chess Federation Prospero Pichay, President of the Iranian Chess Federation Mohammed Kambuzia, Vice-President of the Vietnam Chess Federation Dang Tat Thang, a legendary Grandmaster from Philippines Eugenio Torre), were remembering the 5th FIDE President with warmth, giving very high evaluation to his contribution to the chess development in the entire world. In his turn, Ilyumzhinov said, “Florencio has been an outstanding person. He was known and respected everywhere in the world even by those, who were not very familiar with chess. I recall as in 1995 in Paris he asked me to become a FIDE President. Campomanes added: “I love chess, live for chess and breathe chess. If you are like me, you will like this job” – he said. I gave it a thought and.. agreed”.
There are more than 150 participants from 16 countries who will play in the tournament. The rating favourites in the men’s section are Le Quang Liem from Vietnam and a local 16-year-old start Wesley So.
Philippines has hosted in various years such world class events as a Karpov-Kortchnoi match (Bagio) and a Chess Olympiad (Manila). Mr. Pichay said, “We are dreaming that the land of Philippines would host another Chess Olympiad again. But our national team has to become competitive, to be able to be a worthy opponent to the leading teams. We have plenty of talents, but so far one star – Wesley So. However, such tournaments as Campomanes Memorial, should assist ours and other Asian Grandmasters to gain experience, increase their ratings and be more or less ready in all senses to fight with the planet’s top players”.
The journalists asked Mr. Ilyumzhinov, “how long will the Campomanes memorial last”.
Ilyumzhinov said, “I think it will be there forever”.
On the 27th of August the FIDE President, Head of the Republic of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov arrived in the capital of Malaysia Kuala Lumpur on a working visit. In the morning he had a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Malaysia Mrs. Lyudmila Vorobieva. Then the FIDE President proceeded to meet the President of the Malaysian Olympic Council Yang Mulia Tunku Tan Sri Imran Ibni Almarhum Tuanku Ja’afar, where Mr. Ilyumzhinov requested his kind assistance in the inclusion of chess into the Olympic Games programme.
There was a constructive dialogue where Mr. Ja’afar noted special popularity and serious perspectives of chess development in Malaysia.
There has been a symbolic ceremony where a flag was received by the Malaysian Chess Federation, the delegation of which shall be taking part in the World Youth Championships 2010 in Greece.
At this ceremony the FIDE President announced that he sets up his grants for the most chess talented children in Malaysia. At the end of the year there will be a ceremony where the FIDE President stipend shall be awarded in six age groups.
The meeting of Ilyumzhinov with the Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs – Mr. Y.A.B. Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek has started in an unusual way – with a chess game. After some serious efforts, the FIDE President found a technical possibility to resign to his honoured opponent. Naturally, the consequent dialogue, which was taking place in a friendly atmosphere, turned out to be very effective.
The main topic of the discussion was the further cooperation between FIDE and Malaysia in respect of Chess in Schools programme, and education of trainers and arbiters. Mrs. Lyudmila Vorobieva, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of RF in Malaysia, has also participated in the meeting.
The dinner organized by the President of the Malaysian Chess Federation, Mr. Tan Sri Ramli Ngab Talib, was held in a friendly cordial atmosphere.
After several meetings and high-level talks he announced the sponsorship package worth 2 million US dollars for the next two years. ”
According to this agreement with Mr Alain Khoueiry, owner of Flipper 7 and Vogue Publishing, the sponsor shall provide two million USD for event sponsorship such as the Grand-Prix series for men and women, as well as for a number of other interesting ideas which were discussed,” Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said.
“The potential in Lebanon is enormous and thank to Mr. Khoueiry, we have found co-operation at the highest levels in Government as well as in the business community.”
We will provide you with more updates on the National Federations supporting our team as they become available!
Gens una sumus
“One World. One Vision.” Campaign
Chessbase published an article submitted by the Karpov campaign stating many incorrect things about the Cyprus issue. You can find this article here: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6581
In response to this article, the President of the Cyprus Chess Federation, Mr. Christoforos Tornaritis sent a letter to Chessbase on August the 17th (see attached) but Chessbase has yet to publish it, and most likely never will, despite the inaccuracies in the article they published. Why would they not publish a letter sent by a president of a country’s chess federation if the media which covers “chess news” is supposed to be unbiased. This shows the attitude that the Karpov campaign (and Chessbase?) have towards other countries…
Once more we notice the double standards by which Chessbase is treating the two electoral tickets of Kirsan and Karpov. Such behavior is of no surprise to us.
13th of August 2010
In relation to the Chess Federation of Cyprus and all the stories going around I want to clarify irrevocably the whole situation.
On the 14th of July Mr Karpov visited Cyprus. During his stay he visited the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr Demetris Christofias. The day after his visit there was an article in Mr. Karpov’s website that “President Christofias supports Karpov’’….
I immediately contacted personally the office of the President of the Republic of Cyprus and asked them if that was true and showed them the copies of the article.
The answer was that the President of Cyprus has never offered any support or promised anything else to Mr. Karpov but he just accepted to meet him for a coffee as the ex-world chess champion.
President’s Christofias office said to me that they would send a letter to Mr Karpov in order to remove this story from their site “Karpov 2010” as it is not true.
The other mystery concerning Mr Karpov’s visit to Cyprus is that he believed that our delegate for the elections was Mr Vassilis Aristotelous, a member of the Board of the Cyprus chess Federation, and for this reason he spent all his time with him…. He made him a great fun and loyal to him acting as his employee in Cyprus????
Mr Aristotelous Vassilis acting as an employee of Mr Karpov visited all the members of the Federation in order to take their written consent for supporting Karpov. He also promised them that the document with their signature will not be shown to the public… He managed to take ten signatures, with just nine of them being from members of the Cyprus Chess federation. One signature was from somebody who is not a member of Cyprus Chess Federation. At a later stage, two out of the nine members that have showed support for Mr. Karpov, changed their mind.
Anyhow that letter has no legal status for our Federation and it is just a planter for the eyes of those who read it and can be used only for propaganda purposes in order to divide our Federation in two pieces.
Mr Karpov, his partners and Mr Vassilis Aristotelous efforts to divide the Cyprus Chess Federation haven’t been achieved as they have underestimated the President of the Cyprus Chess Federation.
Myself as the President of the Federation had no idea concerning Mr Karpov’s visit to Cyprus as he had never contacted me or even spent a minute to call me, as his only concern at the time was about the person that would travel to Siberia to Vote and he thought that the delegate was Mr. Vassilis Aristotelous.
In order to cut the long story short, according to the legal status of our Federation the President of the Cyprus Chess Federation is the only person that is the delegate for the elections and does not need any approval from anybody in order to vote whatever he wishes.
But myself as the President of the Cyprus Federation in order to have unity in our federation I
have asked for the eighteen members’ opinion.
In the beginning twelve members supported Mr. Kirsans’ ticket and six supported Mr. Karpovs’ ticket. Then suddenly 3 members changed their mind as they had received a telephone call from a Private number saying to them that it was Mr Kasparov on the phone, promising them a lot of things that never happened and divided our federation in two pieces, nine with Mr. Kirsan ticket and nine with Mr Karpov ticket.
After a legal written demand from Mr Vassilis Aristotelous and eight other members of the Cyprus chess federation I called a legal Board meeting of the Cyprus Chess Federation members on the 19th of July 2010 in order to hear their opinion for the upcoming elections.
In that meeting only nine out of the eighteen members were present which is more than enough to have a proper and legal meeting and decision according to the legal status of our Federation.
In the above mentioned meeting a Unanimous decision was obtained to support the ticket of Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov for the upcoming FIDE elections.
This is the only legal and correct decision for the Cyprus vote in the upcoming FIDE elections in Khanty-Mansiysk.
Any other publications or letters, articles from any site or directions, etc concerning our Vote to the September FIDE elections is just propaganda without any legal status.
Christoforos Tornaritis
President
Cyprus Chess Federation
The Moldova Chess Federation has officially announced its participation in the 39th Chess Olympiad, which shall take place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.
Starting from 1992, the Republic of Moldova has been participating in all Chess Olympiads. The 39th Chess Olympiad is historic not only for chess players, but also for FIDE, as the Olympiad is concurrent with the elections in the International Chess Federation.
In this connection, the Moldova Chess Federation officially announces the support for their candidate at the FIDE Presidential elections.
Expressing deep respect to World Champion Anatoly Karpov, the Moldova Chess Federation, nevertheless, preserves, its position of the last 14 years, supporting the incumbent FIDE President, Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who has been participating actively in the Moldova chess life all these years.
With the support of the FIDE President, Kishinev has hosted an interzonal women’s tournament (1995), 68th FIDE Congress (1997), European Women’s Individual Championship (2005) and other events. The historic moment for the Moldova chess community was an agreement between the Government of Moldova and FIDE to construct a chess palace in the city of Kishinev for holding international events of the highest level.
The Moldova Chess Federation is confident that the re-elected FIDE leadership shall provide a prosperous future for our national chess community and chess world as well as to all chess players of the world.
Gens Una Sumus.
Vladimir Molozhen
President
Chess Federation
Republic of Moldova
We would like to thank the 88 National Federations who have come forth to support Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and the “One World. One Vision.” Team!
We will provide you with more updates on the National Federations supporting our team as they become available!
Gens una sumus
“One World. One Vision.” Campaign
- This Cup is a second tournament we are inaugurating this week – smiles Ilyumzhinov. – The Latin America Cup is a festival with three tournaments: for those whose rating is more than 2200, with the rating from 1900 to 2200 and lower than 1900. The tournament has attracted great interest with 400 players from 10 countries taking part in it.
- This is the same idea which was the basis for the recently launched UMADA Cup, the 1st Caribbean Cup, in Trinidad and Tobago. There is a great interest to chess in the region, but no serious tournament to quench this interest. As a result, local potential stars have to, so to say, get cooked in their own broth, which does not help their chess progress. And now, thanks to this tournament, the Latin Americans shall get a chance to test their strength at an international level and possibly increase their ratings.
- This city has most ancient history, a world touristic center. Archaeologists have found human settlements of 3, 000 years in these places! The main sight here is – geoglyphics on the slopes of mountains, which were created by the Peruvian Army in the middle of the 20th century and the statue of Jesus Christ, which is a gift to the city of the 2nd half of the 20th century. The famous Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas, a New World Wonder 2007 is in a three-hour drive from here. It is very nice that the inca capital is now also a chess capital too!
- In the playing hall. It was attended by the following officials: the Mayor of Cuzco Luis Flores Garcia, Mr. Jorge Vega, Continental President for Americas, Presidents of the Chess Federations of Bolivia Mr. Alfonso Ferrufino Hurtado, Ecuador, Mr. Eduardo Mieles Viteri, and Peru,Dr. Milton Iturry, the rector of the Norbert Wiener University Mr. Cezar Lip Licham. There was one interesting episode during the ceremony – as during my speech a uniformed person entered the hall and started whistling with a special whistle. I first thought that he might be some kind of a local opposition guy. But then it turned out that at 10 am sharp the entire country had the seismic security training. And no exclusions were made for any event. But every cloud has its silver lining: and during this break I managed to talk and take photos with journalists, players and chess fans, and sign a huge number of autographs.
- We have another idea. 2011 shall be the year of Africa, and 2012 – the year of Latin America. We are interested in increasing the number of the countries which organise events, this will promote chess, by all means. Therefore, we shall most likely to organise the next Cup as well as UMADA Cup in a different city and different country.
We will provide you with more updates on the National Federations supporting our team as they become available!
Gens una sumus
“One World. One Vision.” Campaign