Matangi Tonga Online photo-journalist, Linny Folau, has joined four senior journalists on the first APIC - Pacific Islands Journalists’ Invitation Program in Japan from October 20-28, aimed to deepen their understanding on some national and regional issues facing Japan.

During the working program the invited journalists will carry out interviews in Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Okinawa, looking at Japan’s tsunami warning system at the Japan Meteorological Agency in Tokyo, and attending a briefing on Japan’s foreign policy in the Pacific region. They will also learn about the issues of investment, trade and tourism promoted by the Pacific Islands Centre in Tokyo.

JICA will brief the journalists on Japan’s cooperation toward the Pacific region in such fields as energy, the environment and disaster management. The journalists will travel by bullet train to Nagoya to visit the Toyota Ecoful Town to experience the future of green societies. In Naha, Okinawa they will meet the Okinawa Citizens Recycling Movement, a civic group working with JICA to share the waste management system with the Pacific Islands. A cultural tour introduces Kimono wearing and tea-making in Kyoto.

This is the first Pacific Journalists’ Invitation program sponsored by the Tokyo-based Association for Promotion of International Cooperation (APIC), which supports various development cooperation projects to promote mutual understanding between Japan and other countries in conjunction with the Foreign Press Centre, Japan.

The program is led and coordinated by Floyd Takeuchi. Invited journalists are Samisoni Pareti, Group Editor Islands Business, Fiji; Titi Gabi, General Manager of Loop News Digicel, Port Moresby; Giff Johnson, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal; Bill Jaynes, Editor, Kaselehlie Press, Federated States of Micronesia; and Linny Folau, senior journalist, Matangi Tonga Online, Tonga.