news ?as long as the congolese government is touring the East , there will be no news from Katanga .
When will there be any news from the drilling in Argentina ?
TOKYO - Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila has briefed Japan's Emperor Akihito and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on efforts to bring peace to the vast African country, officials say.
Kabila, the first president of the former Zaire to visit Japan in 16 years, was received at the Imperial Palace and invited Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko to pay a return trip to his country, a palace official said.
The president later held talks on the situation in his country with Koizumi and was due to attend a dinner hosted by Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, the foreign ministry said.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has been rebuilding under a fragile peace process since December 2003 after five years of bloody civil war which claimed some three million lives by some human rights groups' estimates.
Japan in the 2004 fiscal year relieved more than 82 billion yen ($790 million) in the Democratic Republic of Congo's debt and contributed 300 million yen ($2.9 million) in food aid, according to the foreign ministry.
Kabila is due to attend a seminar in Tokyo tomorrow aimed at promoting business in his mineral-rich but impoverished country before heading to South Korea on Wednesday.
AFP