Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda 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 a courtesy call.
The Prime Minister said to the junior reporters, "I believe that you will learn various things through your activities as junior reporters. Doing so, I strongly wish for you to keep in mind especially two things.
First, I would like you all to realize anew and rediscover the good things about the regions you were born and grew up in.
Second, I hope that you will develop friendship between Okinawa and Hokkaido.
Lastly, I wish from my heart that you will all work actively in your favorite area when you grow up as powerful youths."