Prime Minister Naoto Kan received a courtesy call from groups of junior reporters from Okinawa and Hakodate at the Prime Minister's Office.

The junior reporters from Okinawa, selected from elementary and junior high schools in Okinawa Prefecture, actively promote youth exchanges to further connect Okinawa and the mainland through news gathering activities in various areas of the mainland. Their news gathering activities in Tokyo are conducted jointly with the junior reporters from Hakodate since 1992, after the Okinawan junior reporters visited Hakodate on their return from the news gathering activities in the Northern Territories and exchanges subsequently began. As in previous years, both groups of junior reporters paid the courtesy call.

The Prime Minister said to the groups of junior reporters, "By having this opportunity during your elementary and junior high school years to make various observations in Tokyo, or to go and see Hokkaido as I understand those of you from Okinawa will now be heading to Hokkaido, and to forge friendships with your peers in Okinawa and Hakodate, I imagine lifelong friends will be made. I am watching over you with such expectations.
In the Great East Japan Earthquake, many people around your age lost their lives, and many peers around your age lost their parents or foster parents. I would be truly happy if you can also carry out activities which will be of some use to the victims and offer them emotional support."