SEATTLE – After a $62 million overhaul, the Coast Guard will have its third icebeaker back in service in 2013, filling a critical need as the fleet takes on new responsibilities, the commandant of the service said Wednesday.

Adm. Thad Allen said that within weeks, the icebreaker Polar Star will travel the few hundred yards between its berth at Seattle’s Coast Guard station to Todd Pacific Shipyards, where it will undergo the 2 1/2-year restoration.

The work is aimed at keeping the ship operational for another seven or eight years. Before then, Allen said, the country needs to decide whether to build a new generation of icebreakers capable of handling expanded missions and situations well into mid-century.

In Arctic and Antarctic waters, “the only surface presence this country has are the three icebreakers operated by the Coast Guard,” Allen said.

The 399-foot Polar Star, which entered service in 1976, has been tied up here since 2005, when the Coast Guard determined it would cost too much to keep operating it. That left just two functional icebreakers — the identical Polar Sea, and the newer, smaller Healy. All three ships are based in Seattle.

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MEXICO CITY – Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim is the world’s richest person, jumping past Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the first person from a developing nation to top the list, according to Forbes magazine.

The rise of Slim, the son of an immigrant shopkeeper who amassed a $53.5 billion fortune and bought a major stake in the New York Times, is part of an increased presence on the list of billionaires from emerging countries, said Forbes’ reporter Keren Blankfeld.

Slim’s worth surged in the past year as his cell phone holdings rebounded in value. He is the first non-American to top the list since 1994.

Arturo Elias Ayub, an executive at Slim’s Telmex telephone company and the billionaire’s son-in-law, expressed satisfaction that a Mexican businessman is now at the top of the list.

“The reaction is one of satisfaction, that this confidence in Mexico exists, and this confidence in our group’s companies,” said Elias Ayub, who frequently acts as Slim’s spokesman.

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PARIS – Is the Middle East about to go officially nuclear?

Bitter rivals Israel and Syria both announced Tuesday that they want to pursue atomic power plants, potentially complicating the diplomatic storm over Iran’s nuclear program and fueling a widening web of suspicion across the Middle East.

In a region where few leaders trust each other to keep a nuclear program peaceful, Israel — which is widely thought to have a secret nuclear weapons program — is unlikely to accept Syrian assurances its program is civilian. Looming in the background Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates also have ambitions to develop nuclear power.

Israel’s Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau dodged regional politics in announcing his country’s intentions at a nuclear energy conference in Paris, painting them instead in earth-friendly tones.

“We need this energy source because it is environmentally clean,” Landau told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference. Nuclear fission contributes far less to global warming than burning of coal, but it worries many because of the risks of long-term waste storage and proliferation of potentially deadly nuclear technology.

Building atomic power plants would enable Israel to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels and meet its long-term energy needs. Such construction could also increase pressure on Israel to open its facilities to inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would shine a spotlight on an area the country has long kept secret.

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PARIS – Mideast rivals Israel and Syria on Tuesday each announced ambitions to develop nuclear energy, with Israel facing the prospect that its plan could bring new international attention to its secretive nuclear activities.

Both countries laid out their hopes at an international conference on civilian nuclear energy at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Civilian nuclear energy contributes far less to global warming than burning of fossil fuels but worries many because of the risks of long-term waste storage and the possibility of proliferation.

“We need this energy source because it is environmentally clean,” Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau told The Associated Press in Paris. He called Israel’s need for nuclear energy “imminent” but gave no timeline for an atomic power plant.

In an interview on the sidelines of the conference, Landau said his country would open up any nuclear plants to international inspections — but said he saw no reason for his country to allow inspectors into what are believed to be nuclear weapons sites, or to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Landau’s announcement Tuesday could complicate U.S.-led efforts to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to cooperate with international nuclear inspectors. Tehran says its uranium enrichment activities are peaceful but several world powers suspect it is seeking weapons.

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