Having lost to Jordan its bid to host SESAME, a synchrotron light source intended to foster science and peace in the Middle East, Armenia now hopes to build a synchrotron source of its own. Thanks to lobbying led by US businessman Jirair Hovnanian, the project, called CANDLE (Center for the Advancement of Natural Discoveries Using Light Emission), stands to get up to $15 million in US aid to Armenia. An additional $35 million in construction costs must still be drummed up.
In late March, Armenian president Robert Kocharian pledged to provide a site for the synchrotron in the capital city of Yerevan. The facility, however, would be owned by a private, nonprofit US-based organization headed by Hovnanian.
© 2001 American Institute of Physics.
2001
American Institute of Physics
