Regional newspapers around the country are set to host up to ten Commonwealth journalists as part of the Harry Brittain Fellowship.

The fellowships are run by the Commonwealth Press Union for young editors and senior journalists from overseas, as a memorial to the CPU founder Sir Harry Brittain.

Every year the fellows spend six weeks in the UK learning how the media operates and how the social, cultural and economic infrastructures function.

The programme takes them to London, Manchester, Northern Ireland or Scotland, Wales and to one other city where they spend a week on attachment with a regional newspaper.

This year’s winners include Lee McDougall, who is editor of Australia’s Coffs Coast Advocate, John Rolfe from the Australian Daily Telegraph, Racha Rawat, from India, who works as a sub-editor at the Deccan Herald, Otsieno Namwaya, an investigative writer from The Standard, in Kenya, and Alexander Rheeney, from the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier.

They will also visit national newspapers, communications and publishing companies, Parliament, Commonwealth organisations, business institutions and finance houses.

The Fellowship is open to journalists aged 28-38 who are fully employed by a newspaper in membership of the Commonwealth Press Union.

Julie Middleton, a senior writer at The New Zealand Herald, Funsho Aina of Punch Newspapers in Nigeria, Farhat Anis, of the Pakistani The News International, lifestyle editor of the City Press Newspaper in South Africa Mapula Sibanda, and senior reporter/editor Curtis Rampersad, of Trinidad Express Newspapers, are the other fellows for the 2005 Fellowship, the 47th.