Cement, cigarettes, and sugar are just a few of the goods transported through the many underground tunnels connecting Egypt and the blockaded Gaza Strip, which have often been described as a "vital lifeline." Now, thanks to an entrepreneurial Gaza-based delivery service, we can add a new -- if not entirely vital -- product to the list: Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

That's right, although there is no KFC in Gaza (the first one in the West Bank city of Ramallah opened just last year), Gazans can now get their beloved Colonel Sanders fix from Egypt. As China's Xinhua news agency reports:

The fried chicken make their way from one of the many underground smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border.

Mohammed Al-Madani, an accountant at Al-Yamama company, said they started their new business by chance. "We ordered and arranged to bring some meals for us and they arrive after four hours," he said.

Then they posted a picture for the fast food on their company's website, and soon got more orders from the people in Gaza, he introduced....

"It's delicious even as it's not hot," said Aboud Fares, a 22- year-old student, as he bit a mouthful of a chicken breast. His sister, who traveled several times to Egypt, was enjoying the KFC apple pie.

While Al-Madani  aknowledges that Al-Yamama doesn't face many obstacles in getting the fast food combos from Egypt to Gaza, he says occasional delays are inevitable. "Sometimes Hamas checks the meal boxes and sometimes the taxi that picks up the orders from Sinai is late," he told Xinhua.

The company gets the word out by posting on its Facebook page each time it is making a run. And just in case you're interested, the next delivery of "Kentucky," as Al-Yamama affectionately calls it, is tomorrow. So hurry up and place your order (the deadline is Thursday at 6 pm, Gaza time).

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.