Reuters backtracks on FIDE letter
Reuters: Siegel dis-information forces retraction !
Following up on last week’s blog article focusing on Prof. Dr. Adrian Siegel’s incendiary letter of February 12, it appears that FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov’s powerhouse legal firm in London (Kushner) has been busy trying to get MSM to make retractions and correctly profile Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
REUTERS: backtrack
‘An earlier version of this story was corrected to make clear that the U.S. Department of Treasury did not state that Ilyumzhinov had helped the Syrian government buy oil from Islamic State. The U.S. agency said it sanctioned Ilyumzhinov in 2015 for materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of the Government of Syria and the Central Bank of Syria’
It is fitting that Reuters published this correction, but unfortunately did not go far enough in clearing up the misunderstanding. Reuters still maintained in the story that the UBS bankaccount held by FIDE would be ‘frozen’. Had Prof. Dr. Adrian Siegel mentioned ‘Section 18’ in his original letter of February 12, as UBS carefully and painstakenly explained to FIDE, then even this misunderstanding could have been avoided.
Once more, it is important to be clear when explaining details. Something that Siegel was not. The question of whether this was done intentionally or not was discussed last week, and I ask my reader to see the link above for the entire blog article.
The more things change, the more they remain the same…
Now with just about 6 months before the next FIDE election, time is running out for the ‘rebellion’ to propose concrete alternatives to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. So far, only Kirsan is campaigning. Karpov’s name was proposed at the last RCF election, but sources tell me that Karpov is a supporter of Kirsan and will only run if Kirsan’s candidature is made impossible by the US sanctions.
We will have to wait and see in May when the RCF will officially decide on which candidate from Russia (Kirsan or Karpov) will be officially endorsed. One thing is clear however: the ‘rebellion’ will be ‘killed off’ after the September election. While Kirsan is a buddhist, and is normally willing to forgive and forget, this time it will be different. Law suits and vengence.
After all, have you ever seen a buddhist monk with a bloody nose and two black eyes? No, probably not. But that is how Kirsan feels today…
