Macau’s marine ambitions, a dead Saudi princess and a gruesome cancer ‘cure’: headlines from 40 years ago
A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history
The very thought of Macau being a significant marine industry hub is a very faraway one, but four decades ago this week it seemed closer to reality when the government announced plans to increase the city’s land area by 25 per cent; this would have been achieved through reclamation to facilitate the construction of shipyards and related infrastructure. Back in Hong Kong, the sale of the government’s first batch of semi-subsidised flats excited many Hongkongers with dreams of becoming homeowners.
January 22, 1978
● The Immigration Department announced that it would refuse to allow holders of no-nation “passports”, issued by the World Service Authority, to land in Hong Kong. The announcement was made when a copy of the blue and gold document, issued by the WSA’s office in Switzerland, surfaced in the city a few days earlier. The cover of the controversial document was similar to that of any other travel document, except it deliberately omitted the holder’s nationality. The passport was the creation of Gary Davis, a former American second world war bomber pilot, who was pushing for a “world without frontiers”.
● The Indonesian government suspended all student activities on the grounds that such doings posed a threat to the state. The action was taken by the powerful Peace Restoration Command and applied to all student councils from universities and other institutions of higher learning throughout the country.
January 23, 1978
