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This month, the ITER community respected time-honoured Provencal traditions by installing a crèche and a Christmas tree in the lobby of ITER Headquarters. The new mayor of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, André Gomez, and deputy-mayor in charge of communication, Elise Placé, were by Director-General Bernard Bigot's side for the tree lighting on 1 December. (The tree was offered by the village of Saint-Paul.)

China has announced that the HL-2M tokamak produced its first plasma discharge on 4 December 2020.   HL-2M is a medium-sized copper-conductor tokamak located at the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP) in Chengdu, China. It is a totally new machine, with some systems upgraded from the HL-2A tokamak that had been in operation since 2002. HL-2M is designed to have 3MA plasma current, and over 100 million degree Celsius ion temperature.   With a flexible divertor, a new set of toroidal field coils, and a shaped plasma with improved stability. HL-2M will contribute to establishing the scientific and technical basis for optimizing the tokamak approach to fusion energy and prepare important scaling information for ITER operation.   --Photo: China Atomic Energy Authority

The Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology has started the construction of the building that will house the country's first tokamak and ancillary systems.

The Thai Tokamak-1, or TT-1, will be developed from HT-6M—a device developed at the Chinese Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP) in the 1980s and donated to Thailand in 2018. It will be used to train a new generation of students in magnetic confinement fusion.

Thailand made its first steps into fusion research in 2015 when a series of conferences was organized in Bangkok by specialists from the French Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (IRFM). In December 2018, HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, visited ITER with TINT specialists, and a Cooperation Agreement was signed to promote cooperation and educational exchange between the two institutions.

Construction of the TINT Tokamak Workshop Building will be completed in 2022.

See this article from the Bangkok Post. 

The 2021 ITER Business Forum (IBF/21), originally planned in Marseille, France, from 6 to 8 April 2021, has been postponed to April 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
The ITER Organization will be organizing a smaller-scale remote event called the "Remote ITER Business Meeting" in April 2021.

During the two-day remote meeting on 7 and 8 April 2021, experts from the ITER Organization will be presenting specific information about contracts and procurement needs for the next years. They will be also available for one-to-one meetings with industry representatives.

The conference is free of charge but advance registration is required.