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Columnists
www.gibraltarolivepress.com
It’s a wild wild life! F
or years we’ve been told that we would reap what we’d sown with our uncaring attitude to the planet. That global warming would come back and bite us on the collective derrieres if we kept on going the way we were And now it seems that certain species have decided to take matters into their own hands. First off was the reported sighting of a big cat, possibly a Puma, on the loose in Estepona. It even made the papers back in the UK . We’ve become used to the sight of Cougars in Banus recently. But that’s usually the drunken Mum at
Ever get that uneasy feeling that the environment might be out to get you?
September 14th - September 27th 2016 September 14th - September 27th 2016
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WILD AND FREE: Cougar on the loose
her daughter’s hen party. Over in Gibraltar the Barbary Apes have a well deserved reputation for waging guerilla (or is that gorilla?) warfare on unsuspecting tourists. I once saw an ape pull off a brilliant flanking attack on a French visitor on the top of the Rock. The monkey had blindsided the Frenchie for his baguette and was gone before you could say “Sacre Bleu!” Living up at the Casita on lake, I’ve had various run ins with the
flora and up to Istan in my 4x4 wasn’t fun, fauna over the years. These have although it was presumably less ranged from the comifun for the afformencal – including findtioned boar. And no ing a bat living in my It was like a I didn’t stop and lug roof beams as well his body back to the as chasing a paniced scene from ‘Jaws’ house, just in case partridge around the one holidaymaker his older and angrier living room, (not the said very scared brother was about. first time I’ve chased a And now there are reat first desperate bird around ports of a shark sightmy house) to the ing just off the beach scary. Running over in Fuengirola. “It was a wild boar at 3am on the road like a scene from ‘Jaws’ one holi-
daymaker said: “It was very scary at first. “The lifeguards ran along the shoreline blowing on their whistles and shouting, ‘Out of the water, out of the water’. “There was a real commotion at the shoreline as everyone tried to get out of the water as fast as they could.” You could, of course, argue that there have been sharks on the Coast for decades. Mainly working in timeshare...
UK pensioners living in the EU should be afraid, very afraid… but help is on its way, writes Olive Press blogger Nigel Nelson
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ODAY there are over half a million UK state pensioners living overseas who do not receive an annual increase to their UK state pension. Since the pension payment is never increased, it is known as the “frozen” pension policy. What has this got to do with UK pensioners living in the European Union (EU) you may ask? The answer is six letters: b-r-e-x-i-t. With Brexit the UK has voted to leave the EU and this may have a seismic impact on UK state pensioners residing permanently in the EU, of which, there is 472,000 of them living mainly in Spain, France, Cyprus and Portugal. The UK state pension is based entirely and solely on a person’s National Insurance Contribution (NIC) record. However, the annual increase is based on a different set of rules altogether, and the UK government only pays the annual increase where they are legally obliged to pay it. Currently an overseas UK state pensioner only receives the increase if they live in the EEA (which is the EU plus Norway, Iceland, and Lichtenstein), or a handful of disparate countries such as the USA and Jamaica. Just like the “frozen” pensioners living here in Canada (I am a Brit and a Canadian), UK state pensioners living in the EU may no longer receive the annual increase to their state pension, as the UK government will no longer be legally obliged to pay it once the UK is no longer a member of the EU. David Morris, the Chairperson for the notfor-profit organisation, the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners (CABP) recently commented: "For us, the emphasis is on Alliance as much as Canadian – it is our goal to remove the “frozen” pension policy once and for all, thereby helping all overseas state pensioners. We encourage every UK pensioner living in an EU country to join us in this battle". There are many stories from UK pensioners who have lived in “frozen” countries for a number of years. There is one octogenar-
Pension panic
ian who moved to Canada in 1983 and then retired in 1998. When he first retired, his UK state pension was £65 per week, which converted to CAD$150. Eighteen years later he is still getting £65 per week, but due to a significant drop in the exchange rate over the years he is only getting CAD$110 now – CAD$40 less than he was getting in 1998! During this time inflation has been an average of nearly 2%/year, and for every CAD$100 spent in 1998 you would now have to spend CAD$140. The octogenarian has lost significantly in his purchasing power! There are heart breaking stories as well –
one 91-year-old UK pensioner, who moved to Canada many years ago, is now living on the breadline. She says: “It’s the small things, and the injustice, that is really getting to me. I value my independence, but I can’t go on living on the breadline and I don’t want to inflict this on my family. As well as ever-increasing poverty, I feel a sense of stress and shame, which is affecting my health. This is complete and utter discrimination. I have paid all my contributions to the National Insurance Fund in Britain and now I have no option but to return to get something back”.