Reporters on the Job
50 years ago: The peace symbol made its debut on Good Friday in 1958 during an anti-nuclear march in London. British artist Gerald Holtom used the letters from the semaphore alphabet: N (for nuclear) on D (disarmament) and put them in a circle symbolizing Earth. It later became an icon for the 1960s antiwar movement. Above, Muriel Rowley at a protest against the Iraq war in Hollywood, Calif.
• A Bridge Too Far: Reporter Andrew Wander tried to cross the main Mitrovica bridge from the southern Albanian-majority side to the northern, mostly Serbian, side. He'd done it before, but the situation on the ground was tense earlier this week.
"The police were reluctant to let me pass. When they finally allowed me through I was met on the other side by a gang of skinhead Serbs who shouted at me, in no uncertain terms, that I should go back," he says. The Serbs were members of Bridgewatchers, an unofficial vigilante security group that patrols the Serbian part of the divided town (see story).
Andrew was not prepared to take on the Bridgewatchers. He turned around and went back across the bridge. But the next day, after talking to Serbian sources by phone, he took another bridge to get the other side of the story.
– David Clark Scott
World editor