REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Authorities in Iceland have exhumed the body of American chess champion Bobby Fischer to determine whether he is the father of a 9-year-old girl from the Philippines.

Police district commissioner Olafur Helgi Kjartansson said Fischer’s body was dug up from a cemetery near Selfoss in southern Iceland Monday in the presence of a doctor, a priest and other officials. He said Fischer was reburied after DNA samples were taken.

Fischer died in Iceland in January 2008 at age 64. He left no will, and legal wrangling continues over his estate.

Last month, Iceland’s supreme court ruled Fischer should be exhumed so DNA testing could determine whether he was the father of Jinky Young, whose mother, Marilyn, says she had a relationship with Fischer.

Jinky, who lives in the Philippines with her mother, flew to Iceland to provide her own blood sample in December.

Fischer, who was born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, became world famous in 1972 when he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the world championship in a tournament, played in Reykjavik, that brimmed with Cold War symbolism.

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Fischer became an American hero, but his later life was dominated by his erratic, eccentric behavior. He lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, spending time in Hungary and the Philippines and emerging occasionally to make outspoken and often outrageous comments, sometimes attacking the United States.

Memorial for Swiss watch maker draws celebrities

GENEVA – No one in the 700-year-old country of Switzerland can remember when one man brought so many different people together in life and death.

Swiss President Doris Leuthard and actor George Clooney were among the mourners at a July 3 memorial service to express gratitude to Lebanese-born entrepreneur Nicolas Hayek for rescuing the nation’s watchmakers and redefining what it means to be Swiss.

“I’m proud that Switzerland gave a person and entrepreneur like Nicolas Hayek a place and a home,” Leuthard said at the event held to honor the founder of Swatch, the world’s largest watch manufacturer. Hayek “not only saved the watch industry, but also revolutionized it,” Leuthard said.

Leuthard and Clooney, who helped market Swatch’s Omega brand, were joined by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, Deutsche Bank chief executive officer Josef Ackermann and more than 1,000 others at a conference center in the Swiss capital of Bern to pay their respects to Hayek.

 

 


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