June 2, 1980

● Muhammad Ali, in training for a summer bid to regain the world heavyweight boxing title, appeared to be suffering from brain damage and should not fight again, a British neurologist said. A central London doctor, who was not identified, studied films of Ali taken in 1970, 1978 and 1979 which, he said, showed a marked deterioration in the 38-year-old boxer’s speech and movements.

● London police had seized pornographic literature valued at £300,000 (around HK$3 million) in a series of overnight raids. A spokesman said it was smuggled into the country from the Netherlands in 55 crates labelled “frozen bacon”.

● A cobra caused a road accident in New Delhi, India, that left three people dead and seven injured. Reports said the hissing snake sitting in the middle of a road frightened the driver of a truck taking labourers to a work site. He stepped on the brakes but lost control as the vehicle careered and turned turtle.

June 3, 1980

● Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin invited Pope John Paul II to pay an official visit to the country. “The Government of Israel is happy to invite the Pope not only as head of the Roman Catholic Church but as one who helped to rescue Jews during the Nazi rule of Europe,” Begin said.

Right hand attached to left arm, Hong Kong spy documentary in Britain: past headlines

June 4, 1980

● Britain named a Japanese-speaking scholar-diplomat as its new Ambassador to Japan, succeeding Sir Michael Wilford, who retired in October that year. Hugh Cortazzi, 56, was a French and German linguist who took an honours degree in Japanese and had seen diplomatic service in India, Malaya and Japan.

June 5, 1980

● Armed detectives of Scotland Yard’s crack Flying Squad recovered silver bars worth an estimated £4 million (HK$40 million). The silver was stolen on March 24 that year in Britain’s biggest bullion robbery. Ten tonnes of the precious metal were hidden in a north London garage. Eight people were arrested.

● A string of seven tornadoes that wrecked the Nebraska city of Grand Island killed at least 35 people, injured 129 and destroyed about 100 buildings, officials said. The tornadoes mauled the city of 48,000 people over three hours the day before.

June 6, 1980

● Canadian farmer John Mackay, sentenced to 30 days in jail for growing marijuana, said he fed it to his five beef cattle. He told a court in Ontario that “the cattle are in the barn eating grain all winter, it’s monotonous. A few leaves of marijuana on their food really livens them up.”

● Senior Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping said he planned to give up his post in August that year subject to the approval of the National People’s Congress. He said he wanted to step aside to make way for younger men. But he would retain his all-important post as vice-chairman of the Communist Party Central Committee.

Moose on the loose, Ringo wrecks and Beijing’s beer bother: headlines from 40 years ago

● A military court in Taipei sentenced the executive secretary of the Taiwan Presbyterian Church to seven years in prison for hiding a dissident. Kao Chung-ming, 51, was accused of harbouring Shih Ming-teh, general manager of the banned Formosa magazine. Shih, one of eight defendants tried by a military court in March that year on sedition charges, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

June 7, 1980

● A former waitress was being hailed as Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev’s saviour. She was credited with plucking him from the very jaws of death through her psychic powers. Press reports said that Djuna Davitashvili, who lived in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boosted his chronically failing health by the laying on of hands. Davitashvili’s therapeutic powers had already earned her a good measure of prestige in the Soviet Union and she even lectured at scientific congresses.

Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history