Last week the seventh formal meeting of the Negotiators took place in Barcelona (see press release). This meeting took place just prior to the assessment of the final ITER site proposal of Vandellòs, and the final report assessing the sites will be available in February. It is recognised that high (political) level discussions will decide on the site. Further information on the proposed sites can be found below:

• Cadarache
• Clarington
• Rokkasho
• Vandellòs

Continued progress was made in refining the Joint Implementation Agreement (JIA) for construction, including what each participant might contribute to the construction, and how the project would be staffed and organised.

The ITER CTA Project Board met for the final time and approved the Final Report of the ITER CTA.

From January 2003, Transitional Arrangements will provide technical and engineering continuity in the run-up to construction.

The focus of other discussions centred on the possible accession of new parties to the negotiations (China, South Korea and the USA have expressed an interest).

Away from the nogotiations, it was announced that the ITER International Team Leader, Robert Aymar, had been appointed Director-General of CERN. During the transition year of his appointment (and pending the appointment of the ITER IFEO Director-General following the completion of negotiations), he would remain in command of the ITER project team up to the end of June 2003, when his responsibilities would be taken over by Yasuo Shimomura, currently International Team Co-Leader.

As always, regular reports on the progress of ITER are given in the IAEA ITER Newsletter.

Further general news about fusion (with a US emphasis).

updated December 16th, 2002