When travelling, always take books with you. When they visited ITER early this week, Li Gui Hua, deputy director-general of the Executive Office at MOST (the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology) and Mingqin Ding, deputy director-general of the Chinese Domestic Agency ITER China followed this wise recommendation. They came with some 80 kilos of Chinese textbooks, which they offered to the PACA International School library.

 

The delegation they headed included two journalists from China's Science and Technology Daily, and communication officers from ITER China. Before visiting the worksite and meeting the ITER senior management, the group met with the communication team at ITER and exchanged views on their respective practices. However different the context, "communicators" here and there pursue the same objective: explaining what is at stake with ITER and winning public support for the project.

 

 

Masaaki Sato, the recently appointed Consul General of Japan in Marseille, visited ITER on Friday 19 October. Mr Sato, who speaks flawless French, is a veteran diplomat with a long experience in international cooperation. He joined Japan's Foreign Ministry in 1977 after completing a law degree at Tokyo Keio University.

Mr Sato's previous postings include Canada (Montreal) and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As Consul General of Japan in Marseille, his jurisdiction extends over four French administrative regions: PACA, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées and Corsica. Some 2,400 Japanese nationals live in this area, half of them married to French citizens.