LLAS News Blog

News articles of interest to higher education LLAS subject fields.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Obituary: Navajo code talker Joe Morris

Joe Morris, who died on 17 July aged 85, was one of more than 400 American Indians who used the language of their ancestors to relay secret battlefield orders during the Second World War. Navajo code talkers were young Navajo men who used their language to transmit secret communications in every major engagement in the Pacific theatre, including Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. Morris kept secret what he did during his Marine Corps service until President Reagan declassified the role of the code talkers in 1982.

The Independent

Monday 25 July 2011

Academic speaks out on bias towards English-language in academic publishing

The complaint that "much of the global news is about a small elite: the very rich, athletes, entertainers, royals and politicians" seems particularly topical in light of the soul-searching about the state of journalism as the phone-hacking scandal continues in the UK.

But in this instance, the analysis focuses not on the output of the now-defunct News of the World, or Rupert Murdoch's hold over British politics. Writing on The World View blog (http://bit.ly/nsKt5N), Jorge Balán, a sociologist and international education policy specialist at the Center for Studies of the State and Society in Argentina, decries the way in which developments in global higher education are reported - or not.

Professor Balán argues that there is an unreasonable bias towards work by academics and universities in the English-speaking world that is "reflected in the poor news coverage of the massive volume of teaching and research that is carried out in languages other than English - in continental Europe, in the Arab world, in Asia, Africa and Latin America".

Times Higher Education

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Police interpretor implicated in phone-hacking

In the latest bizarre twist in the phone hacking story it emerged that Alex Marunchak, an executive editor on the Sunday tabloid, worked for the force between 1980 and 2000 translating for Ukrainian suspects.

The revelations will do nothing to dampen suggestions that the newspaper enjoyed a cosy relationship with the Yard

The Telegraph

Thursday 14 July 2011

Pupils forced to switch GCSE courses as schools chase Ebacc results

Schools have put in place plans to restrict pupils' GCSE choices as a direct result of the introduction of the new benchmark, a seminar has heard

The Guardianhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif