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Japan's ambitions to host the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) may fall victim to the new calls for restraint in government spending (see above).

Last year, ITER's other partners, the United States, the European Union and Russia, hoped that Japan might come to the rescue of the faltering international project when Japanese officials hinted that Japan might shoulder 70 per cent of construction costs if the reactor is built in Japan (see Nature 80, 285; 655; 1996).

But the fiscal reform package announced by the Japanese government last week specifically states that ITER will not be invited to Japan during the next three years of restraint. Furthermore, an official from the ministry of finance says that funding for such large-scale science projects will remain severely restrained until at least 2003 and probably beyond.

Despite the constraints, officials of the Science and Technology Agency, which funds Japan's participation in the present engineering-design phase of ITER, still hope to host the reactor. “We still want the ITER project to be realized, if possible with Japan as one of the potential hosts,” says Satoshi Tanaka, director of the agency's office of fusion energy.

Furthermore, he points out that, in any case, ITER partners are likely to agree to a three-year ‘transitory’ phase between the end of the engineering-design phase next year and the start of construction because of the financial difficulties that all ITER partners are facing.

The Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren), a powerful industry association, also continues to promote the idea of constructing ITER in Japan. A Keidanren spokesman claims that, as a result of Keidanren solicitations, Korean and Taiwanese government agencies are “very keen” on the idea.