CAIRO, Egypt, Jan. 27--Egypt will begin taking bids in February to build the country’s first nuclear reactor, the state-run news agency reported Saturday.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced plans for the nuclear power project last year, saying it would diversify Egypt’s energy resources and preserve the country’s oil and gas. He said the reactor would be for peaceful, power-generating purposes only and that Egypt would not seek a nuclear bomb.
The project is expected to cost between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion. “The type of reactor and its constructor will be chosen according to international safety standards and reputation as well as costs“, MENA quoted Abdel Mohsen Morsi Metwalli, director of nuclear engineering at Alexandria University, as saying Saturday. “The offer is open to all countries.“
After Mubarak’s announcement in October, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would not object to the program as long as Egypt adhered to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines.
Earlier this month, Egypt said it plans to build the reactor at El-Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria. Electricity Minister Hassan Yunis has said the project could take 10 years to develop.
During a December visit to Egypt, French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed France’s willingness to assist Egypt in the nuclear field.
Egypt has conducted nuclear experiments for research purposes on a very small scale for the past four decades, at a reactor northeast of Cairo, but they have not included the key process of uranium enrichment, the IAEA says.

Chavez (r), addresses the closing ceremony of the VI Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) summit next to Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage in Caracas, Venezuela on Saturday.

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan. 27--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his Latin American allies on Saturday to begin withdrawing billions of dollars in international reserves from US banks, warning of a looming US economic crisis.
Chavez made the suggestion as he hosted a summit aimed at boosting Latin American integration and countering US influence, AP wrote.
“We should start to bring our reserves here,“ Chavez said. “Why does that money have to be in the north? ...“
To help pool resources within the region, Chavez and other leaders launched a new development bank at the summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Nations of Our America, or ALBA.
The left-leaning regional trade alliance supported by Chavez is intended to offer an alternative, socialist path to integration while snubbing US-backed free-trade deals.
Chavez noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Colombia in recent days, saying “that has to do with this summit.“ “The empire doesn’t accept alternatives,“ Chavez told the gathering, attended by the presidents of Bolivia and Nicaragua, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, and other leaders.
Chavez warned that US “imperialism is entering into a crisis that can affect all of us“ and said Latin America “will save itself alone.“
Rice left Colombia on Friday after a trip aimed at reviving a free trade deal that has stalled in the US Congress. She sidestepped an opportunity to confront Chavez, who accused Colombia and the United States of plotting “military aggression“ against Venezuela.
Chavez took up the issue again on Saturday, saying, “I warn the world of the following: The US empire is creating the conditions to generate an armed conflict between Colombia and Venezuela.“
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega backed Chavez in the dispute at the summit, saying “the heating up (of tensions) toward Venezuela is toward the ALBA“ as a whole.
He also joined Chavez in his criticism of US-style capitalism, saying “the dictatorship of global capitalism ... has lost control.“
Chavez said a new fund created by Venezuela and Iran to support projects in third countries would have links to the ALBA Bank.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Jan. 27--Pan American Energy has discovered an oil reserve in southern Argentina in one of the biggest such finds of recent years in the energy-hungry country, a provincial governor said on Saturday.
Buenos Aires-based Pan American, which is controlled by BP Plc, is Argentina’s second-biggest oil producer and it found the new reserve in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Reuters reported.
“An oil reserve has been discovered in the Escalante basin that’s twice as big as what Chubut has produced to date,“ said Chubut Governor Mario Das Neves in a statement posted on the provincial government Web site www.chubut.gov.ar.
“By 2007, all the companies produced 60 million barrels, and this reserve ... represents almost double what they produce,“ he added.
Last year, Pan American and Chubut renegotiated the company’s concession for the site where the new reserve was found, giving the firm another 10-year contract on condition that it invest in exploration.
Das Neves said the company invested $700 million last year and described the find as “the most significant reserve that’s been discovered in recent years“.
The discovery of new reserves is good news for the Argentine government amid energy shortages in Latin America’s No. 3 economy.
Economic expansion at a rate of more than 8 percent for each of the past five years has strained energy resources after years of low investment to raise output and explore for new reserves.
During the Southern Hemisphere winter, the shortages forced the government to restrict supplies to industrial users.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 27--Japan’s leader on Saturday proposed a 2020 deadline for countries to boost their energy efficiency by 30 percent, and outlined the agenda for the G-8 summit he will host this year near Lake Toya.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said his country would try to spread its high-quality environmental technology around the world and called on the United States, China and India to help in countering the effects of global warming, AP wrote.
The three countries alone can cut an amount of CO2 emission equal to the total amount Japan releases into the atmosphere each year, Fukuda said, if only they matched his country’s efficiency levels for power plants.
“The most efficient use of energy is now an obligation upon humanity,“ Fukuda told the World Economic Forum. “The whole world must make efforts to maximize the improvement of energy efficiency“.
Meanwhile, with fears of a global recession growing, trade ministers were meeting in the Swiss Alps to see if they could advance long-stalled global commerce talks and provide a boost to a troubled world economy.
While ambition has been set low, the meeting of about 20 countries will provide an indication of whether hopes can be revived for a global trade pact touted as the best way to lift millions of people out of poverty worldwide.
Fukuda said the July summit of the Group of Eight wealthiest nations would focus on the world economy, climate change and African development.
“The risk of the global economy taking a downward turn is increasing,“ he said. “We do need to have a sense of urgency as we engage in coordinated actions while each country also implements necessary domestic response measures.“
On climate change, Fukuda said Japan would establish a $10 billion partnership aimed at helping developing countries reduce their carbon emissions, which are widely seen as a major cause of the warming of the planet.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 27--Iraq has formally ratified the UN’s Kyoto Protocol on climate change, according to a government statement seen by AFP on Saturday.
“The presidential council ratified in its session on Jan. 23 a law according to which the Republic of Iraq will join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol,“ the statement said.
The Kyoto Protocol legally commits industrialized countries which have signed and ratified it to trim their output of six carbon gases seen as being responsible for global warming.
Its framework was adopted on Dec. 12, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, by 159 states that are members of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
But it took almost four more years of negotiations to complete its rulebook, and then nearly three more years to get the deal ratified. It took effect on Feb. 16, 2005.

MANAMA, Bahrain, Jan. 27--Banks in the Middle East will announce losses from exposure to the US subprime mortgage crisis when they report fourth-quarter earnings, Reuters wrote.
Persian Gulf Arab officials, including central bankers, have repeatedly said the region’s banks were largely shielded from the crisis triggered by defaults on subprime mortgages, or home loans for people with a poor credit history, the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) reported.
Global banks including Citigroup Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc have written down at least $75 billion in credit market losses. Of the 20 largest Persian Gulf banks by market value, only Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank has reported any subprime losses, writing down $19 million in the third quarter.
“I am sure there will be write-downs from Middle East banks,“ MEED quoted an unnamed senior Bahraini banker as saying in its latest edition.
“Even we do not really know what our exposure is. I know there are some regional banks that thought all their investments were safe but are now discovering the underlying asset is subprime,“ the banker said, according to the London-based weekly.
Banks in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the Middle East’s biggest financial centers, will be worst affected, it said.
“We saw some of these funds underwritten by major wholesale banks in the region, particularly in the UAE and Bahrain,“ the magazine quoted a Qatar-based banker as saying.
Many of the region’s largest lenders have missed analysts’ fourth-quarter profit forecasts, although none have attributed that to the subprime crisis. Most have yet to release detailed financial statements.
Banque Saudi Fransi, among several large Saudi banks to miss fourth-quarter forecasts, was “totally immune to the subprime crisis,“ Chief Financial Officer Philippe Touchard said last week.
Fransi, Samba Financial Group, Al-Rajhi Bank and SABB bank all blamed weak earnings on declines in stock market related income.
UAE banks had only “marginal“ exposure to US subprime mortgages and the credit crisis would not have a “significant impact“ on the profits, UAE Central Bank Governor Sultan Nasser al-Suweidi said in December.

ANKARA, Turkey, Jan. 27--Turkey expects to move into the world’s top 10 economies in 15 years as it steps up major reforms and becomes a more European country, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said Saturday.
He said Turkey is preparing for European Union membership despite opposition led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has tried to shift the goal of talks to a lesser partnership, AP reported.
As a Muslim nation that is democratic, secular and multicultural, Turkey will add “huge strength“ to the EU by expanding its cultures, ethnic groups and values and making the bloc “a truly global voice,“ not just a “Christian club“, Babacan said. “A Europe of one religion is a very dangerous approach“, he warned.
Babacan spoke to a small group of reporters and later to business and political leaders attending the World Economic Forum, stressing the country’s transformation over the last five years and its determination to continue economic, political and social reforms.
“For those who ask what kind of country Turkey is going to be in the next 10 to 15 years--it is going to be more and more of a European country“, he said.
The accession of Turkey, Babacan predicted, “is going to be probably one of the big peace projects of the world“ in the 21st century.
Turkey is also preparing to become a major economic power, opening 10 embassies in sub-Saharan Africa and diplomatic missions in India and elsewhere to expand its international access, Babacan said.
Between 2002-2006, economic growth averaged 7.5 percent, he said. In 2007, growth will turn out to be 4-5 percent because of drought and higher energy prices, and “for this year our target is around 5 percent,“ he said.
Currently, Turkey ranks 17th on the list of global economic powers.
“It will be in the top 10 by the year 2023 according to our and some international organizations’ projections“, Babacan said.

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 27--A Russian delegation has arrived in North Korea to discuss a joint project to rebuild a cross-border rail link, the North’s state media said.
The delegation will discuss providing power to the northeastern port of Rajin, the official Korean Central New Agency said late Saturday.
“Both sides will focus on discussing the issue of supply of electricity to Khasan-Rajin railways and Rajin Port,“ it said.
Russian officials have visited North Korea to discuss modernizing the 55-kilometre (34-mile) line between Rajin and Russia’s Khasan. Rajin is also referred to as Najin in South Korea.
A Russian railway spokesman told AFP last week a preliminary agreement had been reached with North Korea on renovating the railway section, while North Korea had yet to respond to Russia’s proposal to build a cargo terminal in Rajin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed interest in connecting the Rajin-Khasan line to the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Last year, North Korea reportedly agreed to open Rajin further to foreign ships in an attempt to make it a regional transport hub.
South Korea sees the port project as an efficient alternative to renovating dilapidated rail networks running the length of North Korea and linking them to the Russian railway.
Reconstruction of North Korea’s railways would cost about $2.5 billion, according to Russian estimates.