New Delhi
Mark Magnier, Bureau Chief
Mark Magnier joined the Times in 1998 as Tokyo correspondent, was posted to Beijing in 2003 and moved to New Delhi in 2008. He has done crisis reporting in Iraq, Israel and the West Bank, East Timor, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, where he ended up camping in nunneries and sleeping in goat sheds. Before joining the Times, he worked at the Journal of Commerce as a correspondent in Japan and Singapore and as the paper's foreign editor and editorial director in New York. He is a graduate of Columbia College and attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. EMAIL
6:25 PM PST, February 13, 2012
Iran, Israel trade blame over embassy attacks
The technique had a familiar ring.
4:41 PM PST, February 8, 2012
India group's prosthetic device a boon for thousands of amputees
Shopkeeper Mauji Lal was boarding a train four years ago when the crowd pushed him onto the tracks and he was run over. Doctors amputated his right leg and four toes on his left foot. Hobbling on a walker, he got back on a train last month for the 20-hour trip across India to this western city.
6:46 PM PST, February 9, 2012
Maldives issues arrest warrant for ex-President Mohamed Nasheed
A criminal court issued an arrest warrant Thursday for deposed Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed amid fear of further violence in the Indian Ocean nation after rioting the day before. It wasn't immediately clear what the charges against him were in the confusing and fast-evolving political crisis.
6:09 PM PST, January 31, 2012
Some in India wonder whether their countrymen can take a joke
The expressions of hurt and outrage in India that followed recent jokes by late-night comedian Jay Leno and the hosts of the BBC program "Top Gear," along with treason charges against a cartoonist, have sparked a debate here: Is the nation too thin-skinned to take a joke?
January 20, 2012
Afghanistan helicopter crash kills 6 NATO troops
A NATO helicopter crashed Thursday in southern Afghanistan in an apparent accident that killed six members of the international military force, the U.S.-led coalition said.
4:14 PM PST, January 12, 2012
India marks a year without recorded cases of polio
India has gone a full year without recording a new case of polio, a significant benchmark for the South Asian nation and an encouraging development for health professionals fighting to eradicate the stubborn disease worldwide.
6:57 PM PST, January 13, 2012
U.S. restores full diplomatic ties with Myanmar
The Obama administration restored full diplomatic relations with Myanmar, moving swiftly to reward the military-backed government for reforms that include a cease-fire with ethnic insurgents and the release of political prisoners.
June 1, 2009
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Gutsy Pakistan protesters march against the Taliban
The first thing you notice about the protest is the protesters. They're all men.
9:21 PM PDT, September 5, 2011
COLUMN ONE
India's night rat killers: Hunting shadows that scurry
This city of 20 million people, the frenetic embodiment of India's energy, ambition and chaos, doesn't do quiet very well, even as it pauses for a few hours after midnight to rejuvenate. Tonight, monsoon rains from the Arabian Sea are forcing its thousands of street dwellers to retreat to dank hallways and dimly lit underpasses.
3:12 PM PDT, October 22, 2011
Thailand flooding could last 6 weeks more, premier warns
Thailand, reeling from its worst flooding in decades, received more bad news Saturday as the death toll from three months of downpours rose to 356 and the prime minister warned that the inundation could last six more weeks.
4:55 PM PDT, March 14, 2011
One Japanese family ponders tsunami losses
Toshio Otomo, 69, walked unsteadily over piles of rubble on hesitant legs, through caked mud, around a broken wall, in hopes of finding her home of 30 years. The home in which her two children were raised. The home whose garden held her beloved husband's grave. The home that contained so many memories, photographs and other keepsakes.
2:24 PM PDT, July 21, 2011
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
In India, 'cheer queens' opt for saris
Can sari-clad "cheer queens" stand up to short-skirted pom-pom girls?
March 19, 2011
Japan still struggling to restore power to cool down reactors
Fighting exhaustion and radiation fears, engineers struggled anew Saturday to complete the crucial task of hooking a crippled nuclear plant to the electricity grid to help cool down damaged reactors. The official count of dead and missing in the quake and tsunami soared above 18,000, making this Japan's worst disaster since World War II.
August 21, 2011
India's feeling immune to the gloom
Arun Mandal is a master of the universe, masala style. At 28, the New Delhi resident has a well-paying job in finance, a car of his own, a flat-screen TV and an expensive cellphone. Global economic contagion? The way he sees it, India is pretty much immune.
March 17, 2011
For one quake survivor, self-help in the face of seeming helplessness
Most of the dozens of tsunami-battered towns along Japan's northeastern coast remain mired in mud, but the situation in Ishinomaki is a bit different. Nearly a week after the massive earthquake and tsunami hit the city of 162,000, large portions remain underwater, an instant lake clearly visible on NASA satellite photographs.
March 29, 2011
Japan rethinks tsunami safety
Structural engineer Kit Miyamoto was giving a speech in Japan on earthquake safety when this month's record quake struck, giving him a front-row seat for the unfolding disaster and what steps might save lives next time.
July 25, 2011
COLUMN ONE
Pakistani Hindus' ashes brought to India to be scattered in Ganges
They sat in the dark for decades, waiting on the shelves of an abandoned library, the laughter and tears that once defined their lives all but forgotten.
April 25, 2011
Sathya Sai Baba dies at 84; considered a living god by millions of Hindus
Sathya Sai Baba, a Hindu holy man who was considered a living god by millions of followers around the world, died Sunday of multiple organ failure in a hospital near his south Indian ashram. He was 84 and left behind a trust worth billions.
6:11 PM PDT, March 15, 2011
Rare survivors in Japanese village that was mostly sucked out to sea
Looking back, Emiko Chiba has no idea how long her silver Suzuki rode the waves of a giant tsunami or even whether she had trouble breathing inside of it. What's clear is that she ranks among the very lucky in what may be Japan's most unfortunate town.
June 10, 2011
M.F. Husain dies at 95; artist was called the Picasso of India
Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan, and New Delhi -- India's most famous artist, M.F. Husain, often referred to as the Picasso of India, died Thursday in a London hospital. He was 95.
3:47 PM PDT, March 18, 2011
Residents of Japan quake region wonder where the government is
There may be radioactive particles wafting out of the sky, but Masahiro Hamaguchi has a more pedestrian concern about the air around him: the dribble of cold, wet snow.
September 1, 2011
COLUMN ONE
The typewriter lives on in India
It's a stultifying afternoon outside the Delhi District Court as Arun Yadav slides a sheet of paper into his decades-old Remington and revs up his daily 30-word-a-minute tap dance.
March 16, 2011
Japanese weigh the nuclear risk of staying put
To stay or go. To trust government reassurances or heed more alarmist warnings on the Internet of radioactive clouds wafting over Tokyo. These are among the potentially life-altering questions being pondered by millions of Japanese in range of the crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima.
10:38 PM PDT, March 19, 2011
New progress, worries in Japan nuclear crisis
Japan took a step toward possibly getting its nuclear disaster under control Sunday as electricity to power some reactor cooling systems was restored and previous efforts to lower reactor temperatures with seawater at the battered Fukushima atomic energy plant appeared to have had an effect.
6:29 PM PDT, March 17, 2011
Japan nuclear plant workers' dedication to common good a national trait
In Japan they call them the "Faceless 50." They are the workers at the ravaged Fukushima nuclear plant who stayed to fight the fires and keep the reactors from melting down.
9:13 AM PDT, March 17, 2011
Japan uses helicopters, water cannons in desperate bid to cool reactor fuel
Japanese authorities made desperate new attempts to avert full-scale meltdowns at a quake-battered nuclear plant Thursday, dispatching helicopters to drop tons of water on the reactors and using water cannons to cool a spent-fuel pool that an American official said was responsible for "very significant radiation levels."
8:00 PM PDT, March 15, 2011
Rare survivors in Japanese village that was mostly sucked out to sea
Looking back, Emiko Chiba has no idea how long her silver Suzuki rode the waves of a giant tsunami or even whether she had trouble breathing inside of it. What's clear is that she ranks among the very lucky in what may be Japan's most unfortunate town.
March 14, 2011
Japan's nuclear crisis widens
A fresh explosion rocked a crippled nuclear complex as rescuers from around the world converged on Japan's devastated earthquake zone, searching for survivors and ministering to the sick and hungry. With the death toll expected to ultimately reach the tens of thousands, more than a half-million people have been displaced by growing radiation fears and the massive swath of destruction.
March 14, 2011
Grim recovery effort along Japan's coast
-- A smashed white pickup wedged beneath another vehicle was marked "Day 13, 3:15 p.m." in Japanese characters.
March 16, 2011
Radiation spikes add to nuclear peril in Japan
A series of grim developments hit a shaken Japan on Wednesday, including reports that high-level radiation may have leaked from a second damaged nuclear reactor and emergency workers being forced to temporarily abandon the crippled complex.
March 15, 2011
Japan fears a nuclear disaster after reactor breach
Dangerous levels of radiation escaped a quake-stricken nuclear power plant after one reactor's steel containment structure was apparently breached by an explosion, and another reactor building in the same complex caught fire, Japan's leaders told a frightened population. Authorities warned that people within 20 miles of the crippled reactors should stay indoors to avoid being sickened by radiation.
6:03 PM PDT, March 14, 2011
Relatives search for Japan quake victims under chaotic conditions
The lists name survivors housed in evacuation centers, long printed lists hanging from bulletin boards in buildings that usually serve as culture halls, junior high schools and city government headquarters.
12:11 AM PST, March 12, 2011
Quake plunges Japan into fear, hardship
Japan's most punishing earthquake on record and the devastating tsunami it triggered plunged the heart of the densely populated island nation into an apocalyptic scene of blazing buildings, cratered highways, waterborne rubble and frenzied efforts to avert radiation leaks at damaged nuclear power plants.
March 25, 2008
Analysts expect China security to get tighter
In the midst of this month's unrest in Tibet, Cub Scout Pack 3944 in Beijing was invited to round the bases and meet their baseball idols, the Dodgers, when they came for the first-ever major league game played in China.
1:53 AM PST, March 13, 2011
Japan faces soaring number of feared dead
The number of missing and feared dead in Japan's epic earthquake soared Sunday as a reeling nation struggled to contain an unprecedented nuclear crisis, pluck people in tsunami-inundated areas to safety, quell raging blazes and provide aid to hundreds of thousands of frightened people left homeless and dazed.
July 28, 2008
China had to import 'Kung Fu Panda'
If there was ever a subject and a genre tailor-made for China's film industry, it would seem to be " Kung Fu Panda." The panda is a national symbol, kung fu was developed here, China is all the rage globally, and animation is a state priority.
December 6, 2007
Iran's supporters pleased, skeptical
With a sense of vindication and a touch of suspicion, Iran's embattled defenders absorbed the news this week: U.S. intelligence services no longer believe the Islamic Republic has an active nuclear weapons program.
8:02 PM PST, March 12, 2011
Japanese fearful as nuclear crisis builds
They're scared. And they're skeptical.
9:39 AM PST, March 11, 2011
Twitter response to Japan earthquake, tsunami is fast, widespread
Just as Egypt has been cast as the Twitter revolution, so Friday's massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami was destined to become the Twitter disaster.
February 29, 2008
Beijing opens massive airport terminal
It's a huge building, much bigger than the Pentagon and a whole lot less clunky. It's expected to handle more passengers than any other air terminal in the world. It was built fast.
January 2, 2008
Cost puts damper on this Olympic event
It seemed like a good idea. Bring your adopted Chinese daughters (and they're almost all daughters) back to Beijing to experience the glories of the 2008 Summer Olympics, connect with the homeland and watch the Middle Kingdom at a key moment in its history.
March 19, 2008
DISPATCH FROM XIAHE, CHINA
A blow against Beijing's security
A question the Chinese Communist Party will no doubt be asking itself for years to come is how its vast security apparatus could stumble so badly to allow the situation in ethnically Tibetan regions of China to get so out of control.
June 22, 2009
Pakistan faces challenge of cementing victory against Taliban
The Pakistani army has exceeded expectations in its offensive against Taliban fighters in northwestern Pakistan, effectively marshaling arms, tactics and political support. But the tougher challenge will be preventing the extremists from returning, or from regrouping elsewhere.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
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