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The L.A. Times is shifting around some correspondents. All sides of the Israel issue get a new name to accuse of favoring their enemy: Richard Boudreaux, the paper's most senior foreign correspondent, takes over as bureau chief in Jerusalem. Laura King, who had been chief in Jerusalem, creates a new beat covering the 'Stans and Turkey. Korea specialist Barbara Demick will move to Beijing after taking six months of language training, and Paul Watson is moving to Jakarta from New Delhi. This afternoon's memo from foreign editor Marjorie Miller is after the jump.
From: Marjorie Miller, Foreign Editor
We're happy to announce several new assignments on the foreign staff:
RICHARD BOUDREAUX
Our most senior foreign correspondent, Richard Boudreaux, formerly bureau chief in Baghdad, Mexico City, Rome, Moscow and Managua, is our new Jerusalem bureau chief. Richard brings decades of reporting experience and writing talent to one of our most demanding bureaus. He has covered insurgent wars from Central America to Chechnya and Iraq. He's covered leaders as diverse as Boris Yeltsin and Pope John Paul II. And he has produced projects on the Sandinistas of Nicaragua and on global remittances. And of course, he managed Baghdad through six months of political and military tumult. All of that should serve him well as he inherits thousands of years of instability in the Holy Land.
LAURA KING
As our Jerusalem bureau chief for the last four years, Laura King has covered the Palestinian intifada, the Israeli pullback from Gaza and the Lebanon war. Her reporting in one of the most scrutinized of beats has been insightful, scrupulously balanced and intensely productive -- an average of three stories a week, month in and month out. Laura will now bring her energy and perceptive reporting to a new territory at the center of the news, covering Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey. This is a new beat for us and reflects a shift in resources to Asia.
PAUL WATSON
Since 2001, Paul Watson has been our New Delhi bureau chief, fascinating readers with stories of the subcontinent and, in particular, keeping us out front on the story of Afghanistan -- the U.S. invasion, the problems of the Karzai government and the resurgence of the Taliban. Paul is finishing some final Afghanistan stories, then will take up his new duties as bureau chief in Jakarta, responsible for a vast territory that includes the world's most populous Muslim nation, the islands of the South Pacific and the countries of Indochina.
BARBARA DEMICK
As Seoul bureau chief, Barbara Demick covered the dynamic, fast-changing society of South Korea and the hermetic, totalitarian regime of North Korea. For her ability to glean insights into the reality of life in North Korea, Barbara won a 2006 Overseas Press Club Prize and the Asia Society's Prize for Excellence in Journalism. She is currently on leave to teach at Princeton and work on a book, and will spend six months next year studying Chinese before joining our Beijing bureau next summer.