Bruce Wallace named Foreign Editor

Editor Russ Stanton's announcement to staff:

Bruce Wallace, our Tokyo bureau chief since 2004, will become our new Foreign Editor, effective immediately.

Bruce was based in Japan, but during the last four years he has been a kinetic firefighter, parachuting from hotspot to hotspot. He made two lengthy trips to Iraq, embedding with Marines and a British Army unit. He has reported from Afghanistan, including Kandahar in the violent south. In 2006, he joined our coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. In Asia, he reported from India, Pakistan and North Korea.

His dispatches are astutely crafted -- and memorable. Consider his piece, written two days after the Asian tsunami, about the determination and grief of an American father looking for the body of his lost daughter in the muck and wreckage that had been a beach resort in Thailand. It began this way: " If he can just follow the trail of Kali’s belongings, if he can keep uncovering more of those shoes with the pointed toes she loves so much and the 'Abercrombie and Fitch everything' that seem to make up her whole wardrobe, Stu Breisch believes, the sodden clues will lead to his missing 15-year-old daughter." You can read the entire story here.

Then, there was the first person piece about the diligence of the Tokyo police who arrested the scoundrel who had stolen his unlocked bike and made sure that he got it back and secured a written promise from the thief to never do it again.

In addition to his stories about war and peace, Bruce has proven adept at writing about stylish stories on politics, culture and the arts. Davan, John and I are excited about Bruce's plans to showcase our world-class foreign coverage online and in print. Bruce was one of the first correspondents to embrace the drive to improve our website, delivering a cool series of video post cards from the Far East that you can view here.

Before joining The Times, Bruce was European correspondent for Canada's Southam newspaper chain, and before that spent 15 years at Maclean's, the country's national newsweekly. He served as the magazine's Ottawa bureau chief, global correspondent based in London, and foreign editor, reporting on stories ranging from the first Iraq war to Somalia, and from the Balkans to three Olympic Games.

He is a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal, where he was among the many Canadians who majored in ... American history.

Bruce will report to Managing Editor Davan Maharaj.