News clips about chess are often incorrect and are usually stilted at best. The difference between a game and a match confounds most wire services, although it's quite similar to the same terms in tennis. Then there's the fact that they are usually getting incorrect or contradictory information from various so-called official sources. FIDE politicians are rarely willing to admit they don't know or, more to the point, that they have no authority on a matter. Then things trickle down to regional politicans who further mangle the news before issuing a statement, which is then picked up by the news services. Argh.
Still, you have to wonder how many mistakes can be crammed into a single small item when you see things like this. The first paragraph: "HANOI: Russian chess king Garry Kasparov has agreed to play his countryman and official world number one Ruslan Ponomariov in Vietnam, the Vietnam Chess Federation said Friday."
About the only thing they got right was that Kasparov is Russian. He's not going to play Ponomariov unless the Ukrainian (not his countryman) wins the 2004 KO in Libya. This is unlikely since Pono has already said he won't play in the next FIDE championship, considering himself king for life a la Fischer. Nor is Pono the number one anything, although I believe he officially retained the FIDE title after dodging a Kasparov match last year.
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