CAIRO: The instability in Egypt has delayed the tender for the country's first nuclear power plant, a state-owned newspaper reported on Saturday.” It has been decided to postpone the international tender for the construction. Of the first nuclear power plant in Al-Dabaa until the stabilisation of the situation in the country," Al-Ahram said. The tender process, due in January, has been delayed to "guarantee the greatest number of companies" from different countries take part to ensure "real competition," it said. Egypt's nuclear programme was frozen in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine. In 2007, now ex-president Hosni Mubarak announced the re launch of the programme and said four civil nuclear power stations would be built under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. On August 25, Mubarak announced Egypt build its first power plant on the Mediterranean coast at Al-Dabaa. Mubarak was forced out of office on February 11 after an unprecedented wave of popular protests calling for his ouster, and a military junta now rules in his place. The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces warned on Friday that it will no longer tolerate protests that disrupt Egypt's economy.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011