The announcement of a Russian-Egyptian nuclear power plant deal on Tuesday provoked a political, rather than a pragmatic, reaction from most media outlets around the world.
Although it was noted that Egypt was the most populous Arab country and that it was in an energy crisis, most responses steered clear of details about the industrial side of the news. It was also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi did not take questions from reporters after announcing they had signed a memorandum of understanding that spelled out the intention to build a nuclear power plant in the northern city of El-Dabaa, where Egypt had considered building a nuclear plant in the 1980s.
Like many nuclear ambitions at the time, Egypt's first nuclear power plant efforts ended with the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
The political side of this week's story involves the back-and-forth nature of Egypt's relationship with the United States, which has chilled since al-Sisi came into power in July 2013.
Washington does not view al-Sisi's political crackdowns favorably. Al-Sisi ousted the democratically elected Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist who took over in 2011 in an uprising that toppled long-time strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The U.S. State Department on Tuesday took a neutral approach to the announcement in Cairo.
“We don't have concerns about what we know to date about this (memorandum of understand),” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“We support peaceful nuclear power programs as long as obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to which Egypt is a signatory and obligations to the (International Atomic Energy Agency) are fully met,” she said.