A daily pick of news events that happened on this day in history from the pages of Gulf News dated October 31, 1978.
Warning on expats' living conditions
A London based environmentalist said, the living conditions of immigrants in the Gulf must be improved if industrialisation is to be accomplished without serious social disturbance.
Click here to view a Gulf News page on October 31, 1978(pdf)
Jim Antoniou estimated that excluding Bahrain, expatriates in the Gulf now accounted for 60-80 per cent of the populations. It was feared in the Gulf that improving the living conditions of immigrants might encourage them to settle in these scarcely peopled states, thus upsetting the population balance even further.
Second baby dies in polio scare
A three and-a-half month old baby boy from Jumeirah is the latest victim to die in a two-week old polio outbreak in Dubai which has claimed two lives and put five other children into hospital.
But Dubai health officials stressed there was no danger of an epidemic, although they did warn parents to have their children vaccinated at the nearest clinic or by their own doctor as soon as possible. And following the Jumeirah boy's death the lower age limit for vaccination -normally four and-a-half months - is to be reduced to two and a half months.
Resignations rock Iranian Cabinet
Two ministers resigned from Iran's two-month old government, already battered by widespread street unrest and violence in Iran's worst political crisis in 25 years.
They were Justice Minister Mohammad Baheri and the Minister of State for Executive Affairs, Manouchehr Azmun. Prime Minister Jaafar Sharif-Emami later named Hossein Najafi as Minister of Justice and Mostafa Paidar Minister of State. Baheri and Azmun were the third and fourth Ministers to leave the "national Reconciliation" Cabinet formed by Sharif-Emami on August 27.
Equality in death
President His Highness Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahayan has struck a blow for women's rights by equalising blood money for men and women.
Shaikh Zayed had issued a decree setting diya at 35,000 dirhams for both men and women. Relatives of dead women previously received only half what was paid for a man. Diya is paid to the relatives of the dead victims of manslaughter (such as road accidents) or in cases of murder where the murderer is pardoned by the victim's family.
Record numbers flee Rhodesia fighting
Record numbers of whites are fleeing Rhodesia. A total of 1,490 from the 260,000 white population in the breakaway British colony, chose to leave Rhodesia last month.
This is the biggest monthly emigration of whites since Prime Minister Ian Smith declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965. The escalating war with black nationalist guerrillas has triggered the exodus.
