On 10 October the ITER Domestic Agency for China was officially established under the formal name "China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center." All seven ITER Parties have now established their Domestic Agencies charged with delivering their contributions to the ITER project. For more information on ITER and links to the ITER Parties official sites: http://www.iter.org

A temporary building at the ITER site, which will house 300 people, is complete and ready for occupancy. This building will serve as ITER Headquarters until the completion of the permanent office building in 2011.

The Russian Federation Domestic Agency has successfully manufactured and tested an ITER "Qualification Prototype" for the "dome" component of the ITER divertor, which consists of a plasma-facing component made of tungsten tiles and a steel support structure. The test showed no signs of deterioration at the design specification level of 1000 cycles at 5 megawatts per square meter.

The European and Japanese Domestic Agencies have jointly conducted a successful test of a prototype Niobium-Titanium superconductor for the ITER poloidal field coil. The test demonstrated stable operation at 52 kiloamperes and 6.4 tesla, emulating the operating conditions of the poloidal field coil needed for ITER.

The European Domestic Agency completed factory acceptance tests for the prototype Cassette Mover, part of the remote handling system for ITER. The Mover will be required to transport divertor cassettes weighing about 10 tons along a complex trajectory to and from the plasma chamber.

On 9 October, the ITER Organization signed a two-year contract with the Korean company KOPEC to provide engineering support in the area of electrical installations. The contract may be extended an additional three years.

Funding for the major U.S. ITER contributions is delayed due to failure of the U.S. Congress to pass the FY 2009 appropriations bills. The U.S. Department of Energy, and most other Departments, are operating on a "Continuing Resolution" that limits expenditures to FY 2008 levels until March 2009 unless Congress passes the FY 2009 appropriation bill before that time.