A daily pick of news events that happened on this day in history from the pages of Gulf News dated March 7, 1980.
Students to give up hostages
Iran's ruling revolutionary council has accepted an offer made by Muslim students occupying the US Embassy to take over custody of their 49 American hostages.
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Foreign Minister Sadeq Qotbzadeh told reporters after a meeting of the council: "The students have sent a message saying they will abandon their guarding of the hostages. The revolutionary council has accepted that."
The about-turn in the position of the students, who for the past four months have said they will only release captives in return for the deposed Shah, came as a complete surprise to the Iranian authorities, political sources said.
UAE praises French stands
UAE is to supply France with requirements of oil, "in appreciation of France's role in support of Arab rights," the Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Lt. General Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said.
He said "the UAE looks forward to seeing a deeper and broader French role in the search for a permanent and just solution to the Middle East crisis, in particular because of the links between this crisis, global security in general, and the regional situation in particular."
Karmal agrees to world meet on border police
Afghan President Babrak Karmal has agreed to an international conference to decide on a border police force for the Afghan-Pakistan frontier as a step towards a Soviet withdrawal.
Karmal said the Soviet troops will withdraw only when Pakistan guarantees it will stop trying to topple his Marxist Soviet-backed regime. Karmal also said if Afghan rebels, goaded by the Americans, launch a springtime attack on Afghanistan, then "Afghanistan will become the graveyard of US imperialism."
Accord on presidency for Nkomo
Prime Minister-designate Robert Mugabe and fellow guerrilla leader Jushua Nkomo have agreed in "principle" that Nkomo will serve as the country's non-executive president. Lt. Gen. Peter Walls, a white commander of Rhodesian regulars who battled Mugabe's guerrillas for seven years, has accepted a request to stay on. "The governor and his administration are likely to remain in Rhodesia two weeks to install the new government."
Guerrillas free Austrian envoy in Colombia
The guerrillas holding most of Bogota's diplomatic corps inside the Dominican embassy released Austrian Ambassador Edgar Selzer.
Selzer was taken from the embassy put in a Red Cross vehicle and driven away. He was the first male diplomat released by the leftist guerrillas of the M-19 movement, since the siege began.
Remaining hostages in the embassy include 14 other heads of diplomatic mission, including the US ambassador.
