November 2, 2007
Egypt - President Mubarak announced that several n-plants will be built
In a speech before the annual meeting of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stated last week that his country would start building several nuclear power plants in the coming years. To assure critics, Mubarak said that the aim of the programme was to diversify Egypt's energy resources and preserve its oil and gas reserves for future generations. He also pledged that his country would work with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and would not seek nuclear weapons.
The writer of this analysis emphasizes other reasons underlying the announcement by Egypt's President, and similar announcements out of other middle eastern nations. "Reviving Egypt's nuclear programme, notwithstanding its peaceful nature, is meant to suggest that the Arab world would not stand idle watching Iran and Israel possessing nuclear power. In his speech Mubarak made clear that there were strategic reasons for the programme, considering it as 'an integral part of Egypt's national security interest'... In fact, Iran's programme has prompted a slew of Middle East countries to announce plans of their own -- in part simply to counteract Tehran's rising regional influence. Jordan, Turkey and several Gulf Arab states have announced in recent months that they are interested in developing nuclear power programmes. Last September, Yemen signed a deal with a US company to build civilian nuclear plants over the next 10 years. Algeria also signed a cooperation accord with the US on civil nuclear energy last June, and Morocco announced a deal last week under which France will help develop nuclear reactors there. These countries' quest for nuclear energy has put pressure on Egypt to seek it own, being the largest and the strongest Arab country."
[Source: Dr. Marwan Kabalan (lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria), 
"Why Egypt wants nuclear energy"
Gulf News (United Arab Emirates), November 2, 2007]
* 2000 In preparing the UNSCEAR 2000 report on "Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation", the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation sent every member nation a Survey of Exposures, asking expert quantification of the radiation exposures to populations in that nation from natural radiation sources. The respondent for Egypt was N.M. Ibrahiem (Central Laboratory for Environmental Radiation Measurements, Intercomparison and Training, Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo).