Remember A Day | Italian woman using pregnancy to evade arrest and Swedish children being allowed to ‘divorce’ their parents: 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
An Italian woman using pregnancy to evade police arrest and prison and Swedish children being allowed to “divorce” their parents made the headlines four decades ago this week.
October 7, 1979
● The US government might have to pay a large sum to Chinese claimants of US Social Security benefits and pensions. Washington was forbidden to pay such claims from 1950 up to early that year when it and Beijing re-established and normalised ties. Claimants would mostly be widows and children of Chinese labourers who had migrated to America, often illegally. Officials did not know how many would make such claims, but as a measure of reference, Washington at that time paid US$5 million (about HK$25 million at the time) a year in government benefits to the retired Chinese living in Hong Kong, which had a population of 4.5 million.
● A service company was opened in Shanghai to handle mail orders for Chinese arts and crafts and other products from foreign and Hong Kong industrialists and businessmen. The International Trust and Service Co was the first of its kind in China.
October 8, 1979
