Australian heads to Greece to help crying pensioner in photo

Yahoo – AFP, 8 July 2015

Giorgos Chatzifotiadis sits crying outside a branch of the national bank in

 Thessaloniki after failing to withdraw the pension of 120 euros for his wife, 

July 3, 2015 (AFP Photo/Sakis Mitrolidis)

Sydney (AFP) - An Australian touched by an image of a pensioner sobbing outside a Greek bank said Wednesday he was flying over to Europe to support the man financially after discovering he was a family friend.

Giorgos Chatzifotiadis, 77, broke down in Greece's second city of Thessaloniki last week and cried in despair after he failed at four different financial institutions to withdraw a pension of 120 euros (US$132) on behalf of his wife.

The picture of him sitting on the ground was captured by an AFP photographer and went around the world, starkly illustrating how ordinary Greeks are suffering during the country's debt crisis.

An Australian touched by the images

 of Giorgos Chatzifotiadis after he failed

 to withdraw his wife's pension, has 

flown to Thessaloniki to offer the old

 family friend financial help (AFP Photo/

Sakis Mitrolidis)

James Koufos, an Australian-born chief executive of a finance firm, saw the photo published in Sydney and thought the retiree looked "so much like a friend of my dad's".

The 41-year-old said he was talking to his mother, who lives in Greece, on Facebook and she confirmed Chatzifotiadis was an old friend of his late father, who died 18 months ago.

"When I saw this, I said to mum, 'What can we do?'," Koufos told AFP.

"I got my mother to take out some cash, to find the man and give him some immediate support."

Koufos also put out an emotional appeal on Facebook to locate Chatzifotiadis, and has since set up a trust fund welcoming further contributions. He is set to depart Sydney on Saturday for Athens, before heading to Thessaloniki to meet the pensioner.

"We're going over there to surprise him and just give him quite a substantial amount of money, plus we're also raising some money now from corporations... who want to donate," said the businessman.

They aim to offer help to others besides Chatzifotiadis wherever they can, he said.

"We're dealing with a few places that deal with shelters in Athens and Thessaloniki to offer immediate support where we can with shelter and food."

Koufos' family is also from Thessaloniki, and Chatzifotiadis even attended his sister's wedding.

Australia is home to a large number of Greek migrants, with the city of Melbourne having the third-largest Greek-speaking population of any city in the world outside Athens and Thessaloniki, according to Australian government statistics.

Koufos, whose parents hail from Greece, said he became emotional after viewing the photographs as they "told a thousand stories".

The situation experienced by Giorgios Chatzifotiadis, shown outside a bank in

 Thessaloniki, starkly illustrates how ordinary Greeks are suffering during the

country's debt crisis (AFP Photo/Sakis Mitrolidis)

"Those photos had such an impact, not just on me, but a lot of people I know," he said.

"I've had grown men that I know in front of me and over the phone bawling their eyes out on just how much it hit them."

European leaders have given Athens a final deadline of Sunday to reach a new bailout deal and avoid crashing out of the euro.

Greek voters rejected international creditors' plans in a referendum over the weekend.

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Bittersweet tears as divided Koreans meet after 60 years

Google – AFP, Kim Dong-Hyun (AFP), 20 February 2014

South Korean families sit aboard a bus on February 20, 2014 prior to departing

 for the North Korean border where they will be reunited with relatives many have

not seen since the Korean War divided the peninsular (AFP, Ed Jones)

Sokcho (South Korea) — Several hundred elderly South and North Korean relatives clung to each-other, rocking and weeping, as they met for the first time in 60 years Thursday at a reunion for families divided by the Korean War.

The emotional gathering at North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort was the result of tortuous, high-level negotiations between Pyongyang and Seoul, which had nearly broken down over the North's objections to overlapping South Korea-US military drills.

Television footage showed snow falling hard as 82 South Koreans -- some so frail they had to be stretchered indoors -- arrived at the resort in a convoy of buses to meet 180 North Korean relatives they have not seen for decades.

Inside the main hall, where numbered tables had been laid out, there were moving scenes as divided brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, step-siblings and in-laws sought each other out and then collapsed into each others' arms.

Choi Byung-Kwan, 67, whose father was taken to the North during the 1950-53 conflict where he remarried and had seven children, broke down as he hugged his step-brother and step-sister.

"At least he had a family up here so he must have felt less lonely," Choi said of his father. "How lonely would he have been if he didn't have a family of his own in the North?"

Nearly everyone had brought photographs, either tattered, black and white images of the family before it was split up, or brand new colour snaps of their current families.

Elderly South Koreans prepare to depart for the North Korean border where they

 will be reunited with relatives many have not seen since the end of the Korean War,

in the eastern port city of Sokcho early on February 20, 2014 (AFP, Ed Jones)

These were then passed around, stroked and cried over.

The North Korean women wore traditional hanbok dresses, while the men were mostly dressed in dark suits. All seemed to be sporting badges of former leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il -- obligatory accessories in North Korea.

A grand dinner was planned for the evening and on Friday the reunited relatives were to be given the chance for more private gatherings in their guest rooms.

According to officials in Seoul, the North Korean group included two South Korean fishermen who had been kidnapped by the North in the 1970s.

- Bags of gifts -

The South Koreans, with an average age of 84, had left the eastern port city of Sokcho at 8:30am on board 10 buses, with half a dozen police vehicles as escorts.

The departure was delayed as two woman needed medical attention, and ended up being taken in ambulances for the entire journey.

More than a dozen were in wheelchairs and needed help getting on and off the buses, which they shared with 58 family members, brought along for physical as well as emotional support.

All carried bags stuffed with gifts, ranging from basic medicines to framed family photos and packets of instant noodles.

"The gifts I'm bringing to my sister should be good. Something you can't see much in North Korea so I hope she will be happy," said Kim Se-Rin, 85.

"I've also included some US dollars for her and my younger brother," Kim said.

Buses carrying attendees of a family reunions between North and South Korea

leave a hotel in the eastern port city of Sokcho on February 20, 2014 (AFP, Ed Jones)

Millions of Koreans were separated by the 1950-53 war, and the vast majority have since died without having any communication at all with surviving relatives.

The reunion programme began in earnest after a historic North-South summit in 2000, but the waiting list has always been far larger than the numbers that could be accommodated.

- 'First and last reunion' -

For many people, time simply ran out. Last year alone 3,800 South Korean applicants for reunions died without ever seeing their relatives.

For all the joy the reunion brings, it is tempered by the realisation that -- given the participants' advanced ages -- it also marks a final farewell.

"This will be our first and last reunion," Kim Dong-Bin, 81, said of the elder sister he left decades ago in Pyongyang.

All the South Koreans had spent Wednesday night in a Sokcho hotel, where they were given an "orientation" course by South Korean officials listing a series of dos and don'ts for their stay in Mount Kumgang.

"They were basically telling people not to discuss any political issues and not to be swayed by North Korean propaganda," said Kim's wife, Shin Myung-Soon.

Before boarding the buses to cross the heavily-militarised border, they spoke of their hopes and anxieties ahead of the meetings they had dreamed of for so long.

"I think when I see her face, I won't believe it's real," Kim said of his sister.

"I wonder if I will be able to recognise her immediately? It's been so long," he added.

It was the first meeting of divided families since the reunion programme was suspended following the North's shelling of a South Korean border island in 2010.

China to unify urban and rural pension systems

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-02-08

Elderly residents of a retirement home prepare for outdoor activities in the Handian
township in Zouping county, Shandong province, Nov. 3, 2013. (Photo/Xinhua)

China will reform its pension scheme by unifying the two separate systems for urban and rural residents to allow people better access to social benefits, according to an executive meeting of the State Council on Friday.

The move, part of the efforts to address pension payment gaps between urban and rural areas, was announced in a statement issued after the meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The unified system will build stable expectations for improving livelihood and facilitate population movement, said the meeting statement, adding that it will also boost consumption and encourage more business start-ups.

The statement said pension funds will be pooled from individuals, employers and governments at various levels. The central government will provide more subsidies to people in less-developed central and western regions.

The pension system will serve as a safety net for millions of seniors, according to the statement.

China has the largest senior population in the world, with 194 million people at or above the age of 60 as of the end of 2012, according to the China National Committee on Aging.

The age group is expected to grow to 243 million by 2020, and one-third of the population will be over the age of 60 by 2050.

Annual sessions will open soon for the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top political advisory body, and the National People's Congress, China's parliament, according to the meeting statement.

The "two sessions" serve as an important channel for ministries and departments under the State Council to hear what the public has to say about government work, the statement said.

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Traditional Family Support for Elderly Under Strain in Asia

Jakarta Globe, April 05, 2010

Singapore. Asia’s tradition of the young supporting their elderly parents is under pressure as waning filial piety, rising individualism and a change in attitudes toward marriage force the aged to seek support elsewhere, experts said on Monday.

They told a conference on aging in Singapore that this would present an opportunity for businesses catering to the needs of the region’s burgeoning ranks of senior citizens.

Asia’s elderly can no longer rely so much on their children to take care of them, said Kanwaljit Soin, president of Women’s Initiative for Aging Successfully, a Singapore support group.

“The elderly in Asia have traditionally relied on filial resources for old-age support, but the extent to which they can continue to do so has become increasingly uncertain,” Soin told attendees at the Aging Asia Investment Forum in Singapore.

“As extended family networks wane and more modern ideas about marriage, family and individualism take hold”, the elderly “will have no other recourse but to turn to public or private institutions for support,” she said.

The United Nations has forecast that the number of people aged 65 and above in Asia will more than quadruple from 201 million in 2000 to 857 million in 2050, potentially making Asia the world’s “oldest” region.

Caring for one’s elders has traditionally been a bedrock of many Asian societies, with the old usually resisting efforts by their children to put them in nursing homes.

But experts said that the change in approach toward the elderly presents opportunities as well as challenges.

“Longevity can be a source of prosperity and wealth... Aging societies represent an opportunity for rapid job creation in health, retirement living and social services,” Soin said.

Tony Bridge, chairman of Australia-based property consultancy Burnsbridge Sweett, told the conference there were “significant opportunities for innovation and leadership” in the aging industry.

Bridge said society was becoming more accepting of the concept of letting institutions take care of the elderly.

He pointed to the growing popularity of retirement communities in Australia, where senior citizens live with their peers instead of their families in independent communes.

“Increasingly, there is recognition that the retirement community... is a bona fide form of accommodation and I think that there is evidence around Asia of many examples of where that is happening,” he said.

Agence France-Presse