AP taps veteran journalist to head Pyongyang bureau

The Associated Press on Tuesday announced the replacement of its Pyongyang bureau chief as part of a Korea team reshuffle. Eric Talmadge, who has long covered Asia issues, has been named to lead the U.S. news agency's office in North Korea, launched in 2006, which was later expanded to provide photo and video news services as well as text ones. The 51-year-old joined the AP in 1989 after working for the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper in Tokyo. He has covered a broad range of issues on Asia, recently leading a team of AP reporters focused on military and security issues in the Asia-Pacific region, according to AP. He succeeds Jean H. Lee, who will assume a new role as a writer covering in-depth issues on the Korean Peninsula and the region, it added. Lee had doubled as the head of AP's Seoul and Pyongyang bureaus for the past five years. AP said Foster Klug, a news editor in the Seoul office, has been promoted to head it.