International Chess Day 2020

This video features two former World Champions, GMs Anand & Kramnik, and one former Women's World Champion, GM Hou Yifan.

“Chess for Recovering Better” | United Nations and FIDE (1:33:13) • 'Streamed live on Jul 20, 2020'

The description says,

To celebrate the International Chess Day on 20 July, top chess personalities, including the FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Hou Yifan will take part in a high-level virtual event - “Chess for Recovering Better”.

The high-level participants of the meeting from the United Nations include H.E. Mr. Mher Margaryan, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations, and Melissa Ruth Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications.

For more about chess's special day see World Chess Day | United Nations (un.org).

2020 World Championship Postponed

Less than three months ago, in 90th FIDE Congress : Whither the World Championship? (April 2020), I wrote,

'The biggest news came at the end of the minutes, although it's entirely possible that the next title match will be postponed because of scheduling complications caused by the coronavirus: 'Mr. Dvorkovich also announced that FIDE has almost finalized its negotiation with the organizers of Dubai Expo 2020 regarding the World Championship Match, which will most probably take place in the United Arab Emirates. The most likely starting date for the tournament will be the 20th December.'

Although the post was dated end-April, the 90th Congress took place end-February. Since then, FIDE has made several announcements concerning the match:-

• 2020-05-16: FIDE Council online meeting decisions • (12 May 2020:) 'OCM-2020/05 - The Council noted that the opening of World EXPO 2020 is confirmed to move to the fourth quarter of 2021 under the same name and with the same organizer, who expressed a clear commitment to host the World Championship Match with the dates and terms to be reconfirmed in a due course.'
  
  
• 2020-06-29: Arkady Dvorkovich: The match for the chess crown will be postponed to 2021
  
  
• 2020-07-02: Decisions of the 2nd quarter FIDE Online Council Meeting • (23 June 2020:) 'Q2OC-2020/9 -To continue monitoring the situation and discussing the logistics of the World Chess Championship Match 2021 with the World Expo organizers in Dubai, keeping in mind two possible dates (spring and autumn 2021) and considering all possible adjustments / changes in the FIDE official calendar.'

To keep track of the evolution, I created a new page, World Chess Championship : 2021 Carlsen - ?. Normally I would have created the page only after both players were known, but there is nothing normal about the current cycle.