As Burmese President Thein Sein prepares to travel to the United States next week -- the first visit to the country by a Burmese leader in 47 years -- a potential humanitarian disaster is looming on the horizon back home.

Thein Sein's scheduled visit on May 20 has already been controversial, coming as it does after a recent surge in ethnic violence involving Buddhists, Rohingya Muslims, and other minority groups. But now many of the Rohingya and other Burmese Muslims who've been displaced by the violence and now live in temporary camps are threatened by Cyclone Mahasen, which is approaching the coast of western Burma and is expected to make landfall between Wednesday and Friday (when Cyclone Nargis struck Burma in May 2008, it killed roughly 140,000 people).

In recent days, the government has come under fierce criticism from groups like Human Rights Watch for failing to move the camps to higher ground ahead of the storm. On Tuesday, a boat carrying more than 100 people seeking to escape the cyclone capsized, and 60 are still missing.

The Burmese government launched a campaign on Tuesday to begin moving tens of thousands of people to higher ground (about 70,000 displaced Rohingya and Kaman Muslims are vulnerable to the cyclone, according to Human Rights Watch), but it is still facing charges of not acting quickly enough:

"The Burmese government didn't heed the repeated warnings by governments and humanitarian aid groups to relocate displaced Muslims ahead of Burma's rainy season," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "If the government fails to evacuate those at risk, any disaster that results will not be natural, but man-made."

Thein Sein's trip has attracted scrutiny from those who believe Western governments have acted rashly in embracing the reform-minded, quasi-civilian Burmese government without paying heed to ongoing human rights abuses in Burma. And the historic visit could grow even more controversial if Cyclone Mahasen hits the camps hard in the days that precede it. 

On Tuesday, Russia's FSB -- the successor organization to the KGB -- announced that it had captured a U.S. spy who was trying to recruit a Russian official. The American, who was later asked to leave the country, has been identified as Ryan Fogle, a third secretary in the political section of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Russian authorities allegedly nabbed him while he was wearing a blond wig and carrying two knives, lots of euros, multiple pairs of dark sunglasses, and a Russian-language recruitment letter.

Even if Fogle is an American spy -- the CIA is declining to comment on the allegations -- the reports from Moscow should make us suspicious of the Russian narrative, as Max Fisher explains in greater detail over at the Washington Post. A close read of the recruitment letter in particular suggests that either CIA tradecraft has taken a serious turn for the worse, or the FSB is having some fun at the expense of the U.S. intelligence agency.

Dear friend,

This is a down-payment from someone who is very impressed with your professionalism and who would greatly appreciate your cooperation in the future.

First off, the letter begins like your run-of-the-mill Internet scam, and the idea that the CIA would contact a Russian official on the pretense of being impressed with their professionalism is difficult to believe. It's also hard to fathom that a U.S. spy would correspond with an asset in form-letter format.

Your security means a lot to us. This is why we chose this way of contacting you. We will continue to make sure our correspondence remains safe and secret.

If the letter is authentic, the irony of reading the CIA's "safe and secret" correspondence on the Internet won't inspire much confidence in the agency (of course, one could also argue that the Russian are interested in making the CIA look foolish and impeding its operations in the country).

We are ready to offer you $100,000 to discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation.

Is the CIA really willing to drop $100,000 merely "to discuss" a prospective asset's cooperation? A reader might reasonably stop reading at this sentence and conclude that the entire letter is too good to be true (see any email from a Nigerian prince ever). Later on in the letter, the alleged CIA agent offers "up to $1 million a year for long-term cooperation," without going into detail about what that might entail.

To get back with us, please go to an internet café, or a coffee shop that has Wi-Fi, and open a new Gmail account which you will use exclusively to contact us. As you register, do not provide any personal info that can help identify you or your new account. Don't provide any real contacts, e.g., your phone number or other email addresses.

If Gmail asks for personal info, start the registration process again and avoid providing such data. Once you register this new account, use it to send a message to unbacggdA@gmail.com. In exactly one week, check this mailbox for a response from us.

Let's pause to admire the sterling tradecraft at play here. First, the CIA officer reminds his asset that if he goes to a coffee shop to set up his clandestine email, he should use one that has Wi-Fi -- since few things in this world have the ability to torpedo a promising CIA operation like a coffee shop without Wi-Fi. And remember, prospective CIA asset, to not use personal information when setting up that account. Two-step verification for security purposes? A definite no-no. You are, after all, working for the U.S. government now.

Say you are a prospective agent reading this letter: How would you react to the use of the pronoun "us" here? Presumably, you'd want knowledge of your existence to be as tightly held as possible. The use of a word that implies some unknown number of CIA officers corresponding with you might not make you feel very confident in the agency's operational security.

(If you use a netbook or any other device (e.g., a tablet) to open the account at a coffee shop, please don't use a personal device with personal data on it. If possible, buy a new device (paying in cash) which you will use to contact us. We will reimburse you for this purchase.)

Hey, Russian official, if that promise of $1 million a year wasn't enough, Uncle Sam may be willing to hook you up with an iPad. How could you possibly say no to this offer?

Thank you for reading this letter. We look forward to working with you in the nearest future.

Your friends

Hats off to the CIA/FSB here -- at least they had the good sense to end the bizarre pitch with the perfect nefarious salutation.

Paul Hansen's image of a funeral procession in a Gazan alleyway on Nov. 20, 2012 is undeniably striking. Two men, their faces warped with grief and anger, carry the shrouded bodies of their young nieces, killed in an Israeli missile strike, while a crowd of men follow behind them. When it was selected as the winner of the 2013 World Press Photo contest in February, the chairman of the contest jury, Associated Press Vice President and Director of Photography Santiago Lyon, praised the photograph's "incredible collection of powerful motifs of imagery, that when it all comes together makes for a really strong photograph."

But was it real? And what does that mean at a time when photo software can aid in collecting the very motifs that made the image so remarkable?

On Monday, British tech writer Sebastian Anthony claimed on the blog ExtremeTech that the photograph isn't really a photo at all; according to image analyst Neal Krawetz, it's three photos that were enhanced and stitched together using Photoshop. The proof is in the code, Krawetz argues, which contains a record of the composition. Applying other filters and tools to the image, he writes, shows evidence of additional manipulation including image sharpening and brightening. "Basically," Anthony argues, "Hansen took a series of photos -- and then later, realizing that his most dramatically situated photo was too dark and shadowy, decided to splice a bunch of images together and apply a liberal amount of dodging (brightening) to the shadowy regions."

Hansen, for his part, told news.com.au today that the allegations just aren't true. "In the post-process toning and balancing of the uneven light in the alleyway, I developed the raw file with different density to use the natural light instead of dodging and burning," the Swedish photographer explained. "In effect to recreate what the eye sees and get a larger dynamic range."

As I understand it, Hansen is arguing that his mild image manipulation is the digital equivalent of under- or over-developing select portions of the image in a darkroom. No fancy bells and whistles -- and definitely no composites of other photos. And as news.com.au points out, this seems to be acceptable according to the somewhat ambiguous rules for the World Press Photo contest, which states that the "content of the image must not be altered. Only retouching which conforms to the currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed."

At the end of the day, an image from the November conflict between Hamas and Israel was bound to create controversy. The meaning of another photograph from that bout of violence -- depicting BBC World journalist Jihad Mashrawi holding his dead son in a hospital -- has also been subject to revisions. Initial reports claimed the child was killed by an Israeli attack, while a U.N. investigation found that the death owed to an errant rocket fired by Hamas.

Image manipulation is becoming more and more common in news photography, but many media organizations maintain certain journalistic standards for the pictures they use. Krawetz argues that Hansen's image violates "the acceptable journalism standards used by Reuters, Associated Press, Getty Images, National Press Photographer's Association, and other media outlets." Anthony, however, doesn't seem so certain:

The bigger discussion, of course, is whether Gaza Burial is actually fake -- or just enhanced to bring out important details. This is a question that has plagued photography since its inception. Should a photo, especially a press photo, be purely objective? Most people think the answer is an obvious 'yes,' but it's not quite that simple.... Is it okay for a photographer to modify a picture so that it looks exactly how he remembers the scene?

For what it's worth, the qualities that Lyon, the jury chairman, cited for the award are fundamental to the photograph:

This photo was chosen because it is so powerful.... The combination of the small size of the bodies -- they're very young children -- combined with the variety of expressions of pain and rage and sadness.... This image sums up the story very powerfully, very poignantly.

On Tuesday, World Press Photo told the Huffington Post that two independent experts will be carrying out a forensic investigation of the image file with Hansen's cooperation, and later informed Poynter that it had found "no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing." 

Ultimately, Hansen may have edited the picture to emphasize the features that the judges cited in deeming his image the best photo of the year. But what Lyon described in announcing the award goes far beyond lighting in a dark alley.

In yet another example of the unrealistic ambitions of Egypt's new political class on the world stage, the Building and Development Party, the political wing of Gama'a al-Islamiyya (GI), is calling on the United States to remove the political party and its parent organization from the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

"Gama'a al-Islamiyya and the Building and Development Party do not consider the West as opponents, but instead advocate for the good of all and embrace all ideas that serve Islam," Building and Development Party spokesman Khaled al-Sharif said in a press conference on Sunday, according to a posting on the party's Facebook page. Daily News Egypt reports that al-Sharif then went on to "demand" that GI be taken off the State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organization list, and called for the United States to release Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the "Blind Sheikh."

GI was a fixture in Egypt's collegiate political scene in the 1980s but became internationally infamous for a campaign of terror attacks in the 1990s, which included assassinations and massacres targeting tourists. GI also occasionally worked with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, then headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later merged his organization with al Qaeda and eventually became Osama bin Laden's successor in that organization. Abdel Rahman had ties to both organizations and is GI's spiritual leader -- he was imprisoned in Egypt in the 1980s for issuing a fatwa sanctioning the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, and is currently serving a life sentence in the United States for helping plan attacks in New York City, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. When the State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups was compiled in 1997, GI was an inaugural member.

In 2003, GI reentered the Egyptian political arena, formally renouncing violence in exchange for the release of hundreds of political prisoners. That promise has held, mostly. The change in tactics split the organization, and a violent faction formally joined al Qaeda in 2006. Mainstream members aren't a bunch of peaceniks, either; GI was responsible for organizing the protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo on Sept. 11, 2012, and has threatened to fight for the implementation of sharia law "even if that requires bloodshed."

It's not unheard of for an organization to work its way off the State Department's terror list -- after a years-long lobbying effort, Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq was delisted last September -- but it's a rare occasion. And though GI and its Building and Development Party aren't the only politicians in Egypt to call for the release of the Blind Sheikh, it's certainly not going to win them any fans in Foggy Bottom. It's also not going to happen.

On Saturday, the five-day registration period for Iran's June 14 presidential election came to a dramatic close when several last-minute candidates entered the running. And buried deep in news articles reporting the participation of popular former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as well as Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's top aide and the father of Ahmadinejad's daughter-in-law -- was a surprising name: Davood Ahmadinejad, the president's older brother.

So which relative will Iran's president support? It's pretty clear Mashaei is getting the nod. For months, analysts have asserted that Ahmadinejad is grooming Mashaei, his current chief of staff, to be his successor, and Ahmadinejad confirmed these suspicions shortly after Mashaei announced his intention to run. "Mashaei means Ahmadinejad, and Ahmadinejad means Mashaei," the president declared. So much for brotherly love. Iran's election officials, in fact, have threatened to bring charges against Ahmadinejad (ones that could carry jail time or 74 lashes) for accompanying Mashaei as he registered for the election.

Davood, meanwhile, has announced that he will be running as an independent candidate, according to Iran's state-run Fars News Agency. We know little about his ideology and background, but we do know that in recent months he has been a vocal critic of his brother's administration, joining the president's hard-line opponents in referring to members of Ahmadinejad's team as a "deviant current" in Iranian society.

But the Ahmadinejad brothers haven't always been rivals; once upon a time, not long ago, the two were actually political allies. During Ahmadinejad's first term in office, which began in 2005, Davood served in his administration as the chief of the president's office of inspection. It was only in 2008 that they split ways. In a 2011 interview excerpted by PBS's Tehran Bureau, Davood claimed the separation was an ideological one:

We have separated our ways from those who have deviated from the path of Velaayat-e Faghih [guardianship of the Islamic jurist, represented by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], even if it is our brother [who has done so]. 

According to a leaked 2010 U.S. embassy cable, however, the falling out was a bit more personal than Davood let on. And it may have centered on an individual in the news again this week: Ahmadinejad's confidant, Mashaei. As the cable explains:

Ahmadinejad's brother Davud, the former head of the president's office of inspection, accused Mashaei of saying 'absurd' things to keep the system busy and to prevent progress towards Khomeini's goals. He mockingly implied that Mashaei's only 'accomplishment' is his friendship with Hooshang Amir Ahmadi.

The mention of Hooshang Amirahmadi, a New Jersey-based professor and current presidential hopeful (see Katie Cella's profile of him for FP), is surprising. But what U.S. diplomats said next is more telling:

(COMMENT: Davud Ahmadinejad, who resigned his position as in August 2008, reportedly did so due to disagreements with his brother regarding Mashaei. END COMMENT.)

With Iran's Guardian Council now set to narrow down hundreds of presidential candidates to just a few names by May 17, analysts are predicting that Mashaei is unlikely to make the cut because of opposition from the supreme leader and his conservative backers. Davood probably won't make it through either. But if he somehow does, and he wins, don't expect Mahmoud to land a job in the new administration.

On Saturday, Nawaz Sharif swept to victory in Pakistan's parliamentary elections, capping a frantic election season and handing the former prime minister a sufficient number of seats to assemble what is likely to be a far more stable government than his country has witnessed in recent years.

But observers of Pakistani politics in the United States are likely to wonder what Sharif's election means for the troubled relations between the two countries. And one paragraph in the New York Times write-up of Sharif's victory offers a clue:

He first came to American attention during Pakistan's tense confrontation with India in 1999, when the possibility of a nuclear conflict was averted thanks to mediation by President Bill Clinton.

In a mere 30 words, the Times reviews an episode that brought the world about as close to nuclear war as it has come since the Cuban missile crisis. And Nawaz Sharif, the man about to assume power in Pakistan, was one of the central characters in that drama.

In the spring of 1999, the Pakistani army, without notifying then-Prime Minister Sharif, crossed the Line of Control and seized strategically vital outposts in the Kargil district of Indian-controlled Kashmir. India had abandoned the mountainous outposts for the winter, and moved swiftly to retake their territory when they realized what had happened. The ensuing conflict became known as the Kargil War.

Abandoning its Cold War ally, the United States identified Pakistan as the belligerent and threatened to cut off a much-needed IMF loan package in an effort to force Islamabad to withdraw to the Line of Control. Wedged between the Pakistani military and the White House, Sharif flew in desperation to Washington for a tense July 4 meeting. Fearing for his life, he brought along his wife and children.

On the morning of the 4th, Clinton's advisors convened to inform Sharif that American intelligence had gotten wind of Pakistan's plans to mobilize its nuclear weapons. If Clinton decided to recognize Pakistani territorial gains, India would surely escalate the conflict, risking a nuclear response from the Pakistanis. If Clinton managed to get Sharif to retreat to the Line of Control, nuclear war would likely be averted, but Pakistani military leaders would probably depose Sharif at their first chance.

Sandy Berger, the U.S. national security advisor, told Clinton that he was heading into the single most important meeting with a foreign leader of his presidency. The goal was to get Sharif to retreat but give him sufficient political cover to hang on to power. "If he arrives as a prime minister but stays as an exile," Berger told Clinton, "he's not going to be able to make stick whatever deal you get out of him."

After a back-and-forth between the two leaders, Sharif asked to meet privately with Clinton. Alone with Sharif and Bruce Riedel, a National Security Council official taking notes, Clinton informed the prime minister of the Pakistani military's nuclear preparations (Sharif seemed surprised) and threatened to issue a statement pinning the blame for the conflict on Pakistan if Sharif refused to pull his forces back. According to Riedel's account of the meeting, Clinton compared the situation to the Cuban missile crisis and asked Sharif if he realized what would happen if even one bomb were dropped. Sharif finished Clinton's sentence for him, noting that it would be a catastrophe.

Out of options and having realized that Clinton would never recognize Pakistan's territorial gains, Sharif beat a hasty retreat and agreed to withdraw his forces. The only political cover he secured was a commitment from Clinton to take a personal interest in the 'Lahore process,' which was aimed at resolving the India-Pakistan border dispute. But that was all he got. Nuclear war was averted, and Clinton secured a diplomatic victory.

Three months later, Sharif was deposed and eventually exiled by the man who ordered Pakistani forces into Kargil: Pervez Musharraf. Now Sharif is set to return to power, while Musharraf is under house arrest.

It's a remarkable reversal of fortune for two men who very nearly started a nuclear war.

For those born after a certain year, Barbara Walters may be best known for her banter with the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on her talk show The View -- or her interviews with the likes of Monica Lewinsky and Michael Jackson. But with the 83-year-old Walters officially retiring next summer, we wanted to remind the whippersnappers among us to show some respect: Before The View, Walters snagged interviews with some of the most defining world leaders of the late 20th century.  

Walters, after all, rode in a jeep with Fidel Castro, picking his gun up off the floor when they forded streams so it wouldn't get wet. She sparked a fight between the shah of Iran and his wife over whether women were capable of ruling countries. She asked Jiang Zemin whether he knew what happened to Tiananmen Square's tank man. More recently, she spoke with Bashar al-Assad about the Syrian military's brutal campaign against its own citizens.

Below is a selection of some of Walters's most noteworthy sit-downs with world leaders in the more than 50 years she's been on television.

Fidel Castro

Walters first met Fidel Castro in 1975, but had to wait two more years before she was able to nab the first American TV interview with the Cuban president. During her time on the island, Castro brought her to the mountains where he had been a guerrilla fighter (Walters and her production team spent the night at his camp). Her interview with him lasted five hours and, "in an unprecedented action," almost all of it aired on Cuban television. "The only part he deleted," Walters wrote, "was my question about whether he is married and his evasive answer. 'Formally, no!'"

Shah Reza Pahlavi

In the interview below, Walters asks the shah about how much support the CIA was providing to the Iranian regime. "Does the CIA play any part in this country today?" she asks. "Sure -- gathering information. We don't mind," the ruler replies. 

The interview also included questions about the shah's views on women. "So you don't feel that women are in that sense equal, if they have the same intelligence or ability," Walters inquires. "Not so far," the shah replies. "Maybe you will become in the future. We can always have some exceptions."

"I give the shah credit," Walters later said. "He was certainly not politically correct ... he said what was on his mind."

Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin

It was an historic milestone in November 1977 when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel since its founding. While he was there, Walters got him to agree to a joint interview with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (Begin told Walters that he convinced Sadat to do the interview together "for the sake of our friend Barbara"). In the video below, Walters describes how she arranged the interview (footage of the interview itself wasn't available).

Walters later spoke of her admiration for Sadat. "He had such courage," she said.

Jiang Zemin

During his interview with Walters, the new Chinese premier displayed what the New York Times called "a stunning cynicism" about the bloody crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square, which had taken place just a year earlier.  The army behaved "with great tolerance and restraint," Jiang told Walters. "I don't think any government in the world will permit the occurrence of such an incident as happened in Beijing."

"It takes a lot to stop Barbara Walters in her tracks," New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield wrote. But even she was stunned when Jiang called the incident "much ado about nothing."

"We feel it's a great deal to do about something," she eventually retorted.

Bashar al-Assad

As late as 2011, Walters was still going after big names, scoring an exclusive interview with President Bashar al-Assad after the protests in Syria had begun (Walters later took some heat for assisting an aide of Assad's who she admitted helped her get the interview).

"Do you feel guilty?" Walters asks Assad toward the end of the conversation. "I did my best to protect the people, so I cannot feel guilty, when you do your best," he responds. "You feel sorry for the lives that has been lost, but you don't feel guilty -- when you don't kill people."