SESAME Interim Council meets in Jordan

The SESAME Interim Council (IC) met in Jordan on 27–28 August 2001. The opening address was given by His Royal Highness, HRH Prince Ghazi Bin Mohammed. Professor Herwig Schopper and Jordan's Minister of Higher Education and Research, Dr Khaled Toukan, gave an overview of the progress of the SESAME project. Delegations representing Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Oman and Turkey were present, as were representatives of the observer countries, Germany, Sweden (Uppsala University), USA and UK. Also in attendance were delegates from Kuwait, the EU, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and France for the first time as observers. The IC members approved the admittance of Kuwait, Pakistan, the EU and the IAEA as observers. The French Government representative confirmed that the French will join as an observer. Official communication will be sent to the chairman of the SESAME IC. The representative of the IAEA confirmed the Agency's intention to join SESAME as an observer. Professor Schopper expressed his gratitude and deep appreciation for the admittance of the new observers. Dr D. Einfeld, recently appointed technical director of SESAME, tabled the report of the technical review meeting and made a brief presentation of the design of the accelerator building which would be able to include beamlines with an average length of 35 m. The design of the building shall be finalized before the ground breaking ceremony in December 2001.

Figure 1 The SESAME council, who met in Jordan on 27–28 August 2001.