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Fiji Pensioners

~ GREY POWER

Fiji Pensioners

Monthly Archives: April 2012

BREAKING NEWS!!!

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by fijipensioners in Grey Power Editor, Health Hints

≈ 4 Comments

Greetings to all of those who have grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. A truly enjoyable and fun activity for young people is coming to Fiji – and it is healthy, too!

Silver surfers who attended Marist or Suva Grammar will probably remember workouts in the ‘gym’, but for many years gymnastics has been a forgotten sport. No longer – for gymnastics is returning to Fiji.

With the support of the Department of Youth and Sport, a company, ‘Gymnastics (Fiji)’ has been registered and eagerly awaits the arrival of gymnastics coach Robert Yeal in early August, in time for the start of term 3 on September 3rd.

Gymnastics maintains good health and fitness levels, strength and flexibility. But in addition it teaches high discipline, co-ordination, concentration, body posture and awareness, and focus – all of which greatly improve a pupil’s learning ability. The minimum age for gymnastics is 5 years.

The sport is progressive; starting with floor work, the young person learns the correct way to walk and run, cartwheel, somersault, back-flip and more; eventually joining these acrobatic moves together to create a variety of routines. This eventually leads to work on the ‘horse’, the bars and the rings.

Robert will set up his first gymnastics club in Suva, where he will also begin to train 2 local coaches – hopefully one from Vanua Levu since Gymnastics (Fiji) plans to eventually open gymnastics clubs in all the main centres. Robert will travel Fiji-wide to set these up.

It is hoped that there will be enough young gymnasts to compete, at a basic level, in the 2013 Coca-Cola Games. Perhaps even the South Pacific Games in 2014 – and who knows – one day even the Olympics!

Robert wants Fiji to lead the way for gymnastics in the South Pacific and hopes that other island nations will soon send young adults to Fiji to train as coaches and spread the good word about gymnastics.

Finally, gymnastics is not an expensive sport. There are some rules and regulations concerning clothing worn for classes; and there are also rules concerning safety. For competition an official ‘Gymnastics (Fiji)’ uniform with our logo will be worn; we hope to find sponsors to provide these when the time comes.

But there is more! Robert is a qualified dance teacher and will be giving dance classes too, as dance is an integral part of gymnastics. He teaches ballet; but also jazz dance and street dance, both of which young people today really enjoy.

Silver Surfers; please spread the word! For those who wish to express an interest in taking up this sport or training to be a coach, please contact our Press & Promotions Officer, Paulini at gymnasticsfiji@gmail.com  with your contact details and Robert will get in touch when he arrives.

Robert Yeal completed his secondary education at Suva Grammar School and has always vowed to return one day to contribute something positive toFiji’s young people. He is a UK qualified gymnastics and dance teacher who worked on the London stage for a number of years in musicals such as CATS and STARLIGHT EXPRESS. He is affiliated with the UK governing body the ‘British Gymnastics Association’. He teaches in more than 30 schools in the UK and has founded 6 gymnastics clubs. His own club employs 3 coaches and teaches over 200 children; competitive and non-competitive

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Delayed payout by FNPF is shameful-Beddoes

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by fijipensioners in Articles & Reports, Grey Power Editor

≈ 1 Comment

The delayed payout by Fiji National Provident Fund to pensioners on Friday has been labeled as outrageous and shameful by a Former Opposition Leader.

Mick Beddoes said that this latest delay was not the first that expecting pensioners have had to endure waiting for their payout and that it will do nothing to improve the lack of trust that people have for FNPF.

GREY POWER SAYS:
It goes far beyond shameful, Aisake Taito has been erratic and incompetent since he took control as CEO of our pension funds. Firstly he stated that the changes would take place over five years, then he changed his tune, and has kept changing it ever since. There is no TRUST in the FNPF any longer, Taito’s word is worth less than a cup full of cold water, as a result of this, all trust in the FNPF is gone, and if this man continues to mismanage the fund, the end result is inevitable, the fund will collapse. Why is Frank doing nothing about this ??

Greybeard

A CHIEFLY RESPONSIBILITY

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by fijipensioners in Grey Power Editor, Letters

≈ 1 Comment

Many, many years ago my father remarked upon a mixed-race marriage about to take place with some disgust, ‘One of these days the whole bloody world will be khaki coloured!’

Anderson Cooper of CNN has initiated a debate about racism. CNN research has shown that children of all races, aged 6 and under, have zero racial prejudice. By the time that they have turned 13, the white kids have a 70% racial prejudice against black kids – but the black kids have only a 40% prejudice against white kids. The consensus seems to be that this is due to their parents’ inability to contemplate the possibility of a mixed-race marriage and so, as their kids begin to grow towards puberty, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, their brainwashing of their kids begins. It goes so far as parents forbidding their kids to bring home friends of another colour – and even forbidding them to even have friends of a different colour. So much for ‘Christian’ America.

And now, here in Fiji ‘the way the world should be’, one of our paramount chiefs, a mere two and a half years or so before elections, has opened the bidding with a race card. (She reminds me of the parliamentarian, also a woman, who some years ago called Fiji’s Indians ‘weeds’ – televised in Parliament no less.)

Well, this chief gets it half right when she claims that ethnicity ‘is a fact of life’. It is indeed a fact of life – an irrational, unintelligent, and hate-filled fact of life which no chiefly leader should condone, support or propound.

Racism yanks schoolyard bullying out of the playground and into the adult world and it all boils down to S E X sex. Not fear of sex, no – but fear of what sex between people of different races might produce. Someone who is not like US! Someone who is different, and different is unknown, and unknown is scary, and scary is to be avoided at all costs.

Has this paramount chief thought this through? Does she realise what she might have unleashed? One has to ask, does she read anything at all? Does she pay attention to world affairs? Has she ever read a history book? After reading Graham Davis’ report (unfortunately given prominence by the Sun on its front page) I think not.

He refers to this person as the Boadicea of the South Pacific – I’d call her the female Ian Paisley – the rabidly poisonous parson of Northern Ireland who promoted religious intolerance and hatred there, spitting his venom into people’s faces and TV cameras.

The problem is that that sort of venom, religious or racist, actually works. It works for the simple reason that we human beings – each and every one of us – likes to think that we are ‘special’; and the easiest way to  go about that is not to work hard to truly be special, but to claim a superior ‘otherness’ compared to others.

Royalty, nobles and chiefs are actually born superior to the rest of us, and therefore ‘special’ – but think about this: they are only ‘special’ because we, the so-called commoners, are prepared to grant them their special status. They are superior because we permit them to claim so: and special because we allow them to be. (This of course ignores the very obvious economic advantages of being ‘superior’ and therefore ‘special’)

So – if we are neither prepared to work hard to become special people in our own right, nor simply accept our lot, there are two (im)-perfect solutions. Religion or Race. We can simply claim that our religion or race is superior, and therefore ‘special’. If we can claim superiority of both religion and race we’ve can really feel ‘special’!

And we human beings have been doing that since time immemorial. Just look at all those ‘hosts’ and ‘nations’ who vanished in biblical times. Remember Ireland and later, Northern Ireland. Think back to Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Cambodia. And as I write, consider Africa and the Middle East. It is all about religion and race.

Most chiefs are getting on a bit – but they unfortunately have a very real grey-power: no longer the GCC and the dough, but certainly the influence, and they are not likely to give that up without a struggle, no matter how many sevu-sevus and apologising ceremonies they grant the PM.

So – here we have an extremely important and ‘special’ chief who one day very soon might have to look back on a blood-bath and eat her words. She has chosen to be divisive rather than inclusive. I quote…’racial calamity’. She is warning us all about a possible ‘racial calamity’? She’s herself will be the cause of it! It is her responsibility to promote understanding, tolerance, and unity.

So what did I reply to my father all those years ago? I told him that the sooner the world was all khaki coloured the better the world would be.

Pensioner committed suicide by the nation’s parliament

05 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by fijipensioners in Articles & Reports

≈ Leave a comment

A 77-year-old Greek man has committed suicide in central Athens by the nation’s parliament, shooting himself with a handgun in apparent financial desperation.

Eyewitness reports say that the man shouted “So I won’t leave debts for my children” before turning the gun on himself. Others claimed he said nothing.

Greek state media reports the man left a suicide note saying “The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival. And since I cannot find justice, I cannot find another means to react besides putting a decent end [to my life], before I start searching the garbage for food and become a burden for my child.”

Georgios Tsolakoglou headed the Greek collaborationist government during the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War.

The note has been widely regarded as drawing a parallel between Lucas Papademos’ current collaborationist government and Tsolakoglou’s regime because of the economic crisis in the country.

In his note, the deceased forecasts the Greek government a fate similar to Benito Mussolini’s if they continue robbing young people of their future. The Italian dictator’s body hung in Milan for public view several days after his execution in April 1945.

“Young people without a future will one day take up arms and hang the traitors upside down in Syntagma Square, as the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945,” the message reportedly reads.

“Syntgama” is a Greek word for “constitution”. Syntagma Square, where the elderly man committed suicide, lies in front of the Greek Parliament.

Calls for ‘Syntagma afternoon’ protests

The incident occurred around 9 am (local time), just outside a metro station, when the square was filled with people and commuters. The man took his life behind a big tree, which concealed him from most eyes. 

Some reports identify the man as Dimitris Christoulas. This is yet to be confirmed by the police.

The pensioner appears to have been a retired pharmacist who owned a drugstore in Athens, which he sold in 1994, Costas Lourantos, the head of the Attica Pharmacist’s Association told Skai radio.

The Greek community has issued calls for a “Syntagma afternoon.” Over 1,700 people have signed up to an event announced via Facebook: “Everyone at Syntagma. Let’s not get used to death.”

“I am truly shocked,” Athens doctor Dimitris Giannopoulos told the Associated Press, “because I see that as destroying my dignity… and the only thing they care about are bank accounts.“

Live footage shows dozens of people already flocking to Syntagma Square. Some pay tribute and leave immediately, others stay. Motorcyclists said they would stage a protest ride around the capital in the evening.

‘Who’s next?’

Throughout the day, people have been bringing flowers to the tree under which the desperate old man took his own life. Numerous messages have been left on the tree: “Austerity kills,” “Enough is enough,” “Not a suicide; a murder” or “Who’s gonna be next?”

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