Tokyo

Chess great to seek political asylum

Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has appealed Japanese plans to deport him to the United States and hopes to find political asylum in a third country, a friend said Wednesday.

Fischer was detained by Japanese immigration officials last week after trying to leave the country. Officials say his passport was invalid, and on Tuesday confirmed that he was being processed for deportation.

Fischer is wanted in the United States for playing a rematch against Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992. Yugoslavia was under international sanctions at the time, and U.S. citizens were banned from doing business there.

Fischer won the match and more than $3 million in prize money.

Havana

U.S. surpasses visa goal

America’s top diplomat to Cuba said on Wednesday the United States has fulfilled its commitment this year to grant permanent immigration visas to at least 20,000 Cubans, and it was now Cuba’s turn to honor its obligations under migration accords.

The migration accords were established in the mid-1990s to promote legal, orderly migration between the two countries. Under the agreement, the United States must provide at least 20,000 visas to Cubans annually, and Cuba is to discourage its citizens from making risky attempts to immigrate illegally to the United States.

The U.S. Interest Section issued its 20,000th immigration visa on July 16. This year, in a fiscal period ending Sept. 30, it hopes to surpass the 21,075 visas granted through the end of September last year.

Some 250,000 Cubans have moved to the United States under the migration accords