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Chinese J-10 fighter jets like the ones that intercepted a U.S. surveillance plane last weekend.

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As if there werent enough alarming news to pay attention to between the impending vote on the future of American health care and a possible looming constitutional crisis, things are getting a little tense on the military front in multiple theaters around the world.

Joshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairs.

U.S. officials said on Monday that two Chinese jets had intercepted a U.S. Navy surveillance plane above the East China Sea on Sunday, coming close enough to force the American plane to change direction. After the incident, Chinas defense ministry said that U.S. surveillance activity in the area threatens China's national security, harms Sino-U.S. maritime and air military safety, endangers the personal safety of both sides' pilots and is the root cause of unexpected incidents.

These interceptions have happened before, but tensions are particularly high at the moment. The U.S. Navy recently sailed a destroyer close to a disputed island in the South China Sea in order to assert freedom of navigation rights in an area of the sea claimed by Beijing. The Trump administration is also preparing sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals for doing business with North Korea while the president has apparently now decided that China isnt doing enough to pressure the country to give up its nuclear program. China, meanwhile, continues to object to the U.S. deployment of a missile defense system in South Korea, which the U.S. plans to test again soon.

So thats China. Then theres Iran.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Navy ship fired warning shots at an Iranian patrol boat, believed to have been operated by the countrys Revolutionary Guard, after it came within 150 yard of the U.S. ships. Things are even testier than normal in the Gulf due to the ongoing blockade of Qatar by several of its neighbors, in part due to its friendly relationship with Iran. The U.S. position on that crisis has been a bit muddled, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson staying neutral at the same time President Trump has fully supported the blockade.

U.S.-Iranian relations continue to deteriorate: An American student was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran for spying while the U.S. congress is preparing new sanctions to punish Iran for its ballistic missile tests.

While both the China and Iran incidents ended without any loss of life or major damage, they are the sort of thing that can easily lead to much larger and more dangerous confrontations. Now back to the tweets.

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In Other News, US Military Has Close Calls With Iran and China - Slate Magazine (blog)

In Hong Kong, a proposal to lease part of a new rail terminal to China and to allow Chinese officers to enforce mainland law there has raised concerns about the erosion of the one country, two systems model.

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Chinas embattled human rights lawyers are the focus of a New York Times Magazine report.

Lawyers for dissidents often face a terrible choice: acquiescence or imprisonment.

We know we cant win. We cant do anything to make our clients not guilty, said a human rights lawyer, above.

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Even more surreal than Id expected.

Last week, the U.S. barred Americans from traveling to North Korea, after the death of a college student who was detained in the country for 17 months.

We asked readers who had traveled there to tell us why they went and what they found. Here is a sampling of the responses we received.

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Cardinal George Pell, one of the popes top advisers, above, is expected to make his first court appearance in Australia after becoming the highest-ranking Roman Catholic prelate to be formally charged with sexual offenses.

The still-unspecified charges followed years of criticism that he had at best overlooked, and at worst covered up, the widespread abuse of children by clergymen in Australia.

Cardinal Pell has vowed to fight the charges, calling them false and the result of a relentless character assassination.

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Michael Kors bought Jimmy Choo for about $1.2 billion. Our columnist examines whether the shoe fits and if the deal risks taking the luxury footwear brand down-market.

HNA Group, the Chinese conglomerate, tried to allay concerns about its ownership structure by releasing details of its largest shareholder a private investor who recently donated his 30 percent stake to the companys charity arm in New York.

Employees at a U.S. tech company are volunteering to have microchips injected between their thumb and index finger, making it easier to open doors and pay for food.

Tech report cards: Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reported $26 billion in revenue. Facebook announces earnings today, Amazon and Twitter on Thursday.

U.S. stocks were higher. Heres a snapshot of global markets.

New footage of a gunfight that left three Americans dead near a military base in Jordan shows a deliberate attack that was initially explained as a mistake. [The New York Times]

At least 12 people were killed when a five-story building collapsed in a suburb of Mumbai. A rescue operation is underway to dig out people trapped in the debris. [The New York Times]

The Pentagon said a U.S. Navy spy plane took evasive action to avoid crashing into a Chinese fighter jet in contested skies above the East China Sea on Sunday. [The New York Times]

In Myanmar, two people died this week of swine flu (H1N1), bringing the total fatalities to three just days after 13 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus. [The Irrawaddy]

The governor of Okinawa filed another lawsuit against the Japanese government to halt the relocation of a U.S. military base in his prefecture. [The Asahi Shimbun]

Cambodias first national figure skating team trains at a public ice rink on top of a shopping mall. [Southeast Asia Globe]

India, Indonesia and Japan are among the few countries where companies offer women paid time off for period pain. Some experts fear these policies reinforce dated stereotypes. [The New York Times]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

Recipe of the day: Weeknights call for comfort food like delicious chicken curry.

Can you test the health of your gut microbiota?

Toss care into the wind. Heres how not to get a job.

Smugglers are finding creative ways to get drugs into the U.S. through Mexico as the United States increases the number of agents, drones, sensors and cameras patrolling the border.

We documented the work of Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist who examined the brains of 111 N.F.L. players. She found that 110 were found to have C.T.E., the degenerative disease linked to repeated blows to the head.

And our Game of Thrones newsletter examines Melisandres prophecy, explains why there are two characters named Nymeria and points out the internets best articles on the most recent episode.

War in a periscope declared the front page of The Times on this day in 1942.

The headline accompanied a photo from the U.S. Navy, the first combat action photograph taken through the periscope of an American undersea craft.

That got us wondering about other photographic firsts at The Times, so we dove into our archives.

The Times published its first photographs on Sept. 6, 1896, in the first edition of its Sunday Magazine. (The pictures were of two of the candidates in the 1860 presidential election. Photos of white, male politicians? Some things never change.)

It took another 13 years for a photo to finally appear on the front page. The Times sponsored a daredevil flight from Albany to New York City and ran a picture of the plane at takeoff.

We experimented with printing in color as far back as the early 20th century, but the front page was strictly black and white until Oct. 16, 1997, when a photo of the World Series-bound Cleveland Indians appeared.

Interested in more photos from The Timess archive? Check out our blog, The Lively Morgue, and follow @nytarchives on Instagram.

Chris Stanford and Ryan Murphy contributed reporting.

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Correction: An earlier version of todays briefing misstated the frequency of the Boy Scouts of America Jamboree. It is quadrennial.

We have briefings timed for the Australian, European and American mornings. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.

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Jeff Sessions, North Korea, Iran: Your Morning Briefing - New York Times

Once dependent on Beijing during the years of international isolation imposed by the West for its nuclear program, Iran is now critical to Chinas ability to realize its grandiose ambitions. Other routes to Western markets are longer and lead through Russia, potentially a competitor of China.

It is not as if their project is canceled if we dont participate, said Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan, the Iranian deputy minister of roads and urban development. But if they want to save time and money, they will choose the shortest route.

He added with a smile: There are also political advantages to Iran, compared to Russia. They are highly interested in working with us.

Others worry that with the large-scale Chinese investment and Chinas growing presence in the Iranian economy, Tehran will become more dependent than ever on China, already its biggest trading partner.

China is also an important market for Iranian oil, and because of remaining unilateral American sanctions that intimidate global banks, it is the only source of the large amounts of capital Iran needs to finance critical infrastructure projects. But that, apparently, is a risk the leadership is prepared to take.

China is dominating Iran, said Mehdi Taghavi, an economics professor at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, adding that the Iranian authorities do not see any drawbacks to being dependent on China. Together, we are moving ahead.

It is not just roads and rail lines that Iran is getting from China. Iran is also becoming an increasingly popular destination for Chinese entrepreneurs like Mr. Lin. With a few words of Persian, as well as low-interest loans and tax breaks from the Chinese and Iranian governments, he has built a small empire since moving to Iran in 2002. His eight factories make a wide variety of goods that find markets in Iran and in neighboring countries.

You can say that I was even more visionary than some of our politicians, Mr. Lin said with a laugh. Since 2013, when the One Belt, One Road plan was started, he has had dozens of visitors from China and multiple meetings with the Chinese ambassador in Tehran. I was a pioneer, and they want to hear my experiences, he said.

Mr. Lin established his factories along what will be a key part of the trade route a 575-mile electrified rail line linking Tehran and Mashhad, financed with a $1.6 billion loan from China. When completed and attached to the wider network, the new line will enable Mr. Lin to export his goods as far as northern Europe, Poland and Russia, at much less cost than today.

I am expecting a 50 percent increase in revenue, Mr. Lin said. He lit another cigarette. Of course, Irans economy will also grow. China will expand. Its power will grow.

He played Chinese pop music in his car and tapped his fingers on the wheel. Life is good in Iran, he said. The future is good.

Iranians who spotted Mr. Lin driving between his factories waved and smiled. Having mastered a few basic phrases in Persian over the years, he said hi and goodbye to some of his 2,000 employees. Iranians are hard workers, he said, but he does not like their food. We grow our own vegetables and eat Chinese food, he said. Just like home.

Even when the boss was out of earshot, workers in his factories said that they were very happy with the Chinese. They pay every month on time and only hire people instead of fire, Amir Dalilian, a guard, said. If more will come, our economy will flourish.

When finished, the proposed rail link will stretch nearly 2,000 miles, from Urumqi, the capital of Chinas western region of Xinjiang, to Tehran. If all goes according to plan, it will connect Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, Chinas state-owned paper, China Daily, wrote. Track sizes need to be adjusted and new connections made, as well as upgrades to the newest trains.

In a 2016 test, China and Iran drove a train from the port of Shanghai in eastern China to Tehran in just 12 days, a journey that takes 30 days by sea. In Iran, they used the existing track between Tehran and Mashhad, powered by a slower diesel-powered train. When the new line is opened in 2021, it is expected to accommodate electric trains at speeds up to 125 miles an hour.

Mr. Fakhrieh-Kashan, an English speaker who oversees negotiation of most of the larger international state business deals, said the Chinese initiative would do much more than just provide a channel for transporting goods. Think infrastructure, city planning, cultural exchanges, commercial agreements, investments and tourism, he said. You can pick any project, they are all under this umbrella.

Business ties between Iran and China have been growing since the United States and its European allies at the time started pressuring Iran over its nuclear program around 2007. China remains the largest buyer of Iranian crude, even after Western sanctions were lifted in 2016, allowing Iran to again sell oil in European markets.

Chinese state companies are active all over the country, building highways, digging mines and making steel. Tehrans shops are flooded with Chinese products and its streets clogged with Chinese cars.

Irans leaders hope that the countrys participation in the plan will enable them to piggyback on Chinas large economic ambitions.

The Chinese plan is designed in such a way that it will establish Chinese hegemony across half of the world, Mr. Fakhrieh-Kashan said. While Iran will put its own interests first, we are creating corridors at the requests of the Chinese. It will give us huge access to new markets.

A version of this article appears in print on July 25, 2017, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinas Push to Link East and West Puts Iran at Center of Everything.

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For China's Global Ambitions, 'Iran Is at the Center of Everything ... - New York Times

Revolutionary soldiers in a street of Baghdad, Iraq, July 14, 1958. Photograph: AP/HO

Bagdad, July 25

Bagdad is hot but apparently not excessively bothered as Iraq settles down into its new revolutionary mould.

A ruined office here and there, a plethora of posters, a few erased slogans, an armed guard at the airport, an elated taxi-cab driver - these are the only signs you will see as you drive into the city of the Caliphs that the old order has been obliterated and the house of the Hashemites expunged from Bagdad.

Through a placid veneer, though, some of the violence and tragedy of the coup protrudes. A man demonstrates to you with cruel, clutching movements of his hands how Nuri es-Said was dismembered by the mob. The British Ambassador sits calm but anxious in a suite in the Grand Hotel. A troop of Iraqi soldiers guard the scarred British Embassy, that old symbol of British hegemony.

You ask the whereabouts of a well-known official and the Second Lieutenant gives you a sad, wry smile as he replies: That gentleman has now retired. It is a new world in Bagdad to-day. The dear old London buses still lurch down Rashid Street and the British still drink their gin happily enough in its bars; but behind the familiar faade of the city, that mercurial mixture of the sleazy and the brilliant, all is changed and all is blurred.

We do not yet know for certain what kind of a world the revolutionary leaders envisage for their people; whether they want Iraq to maintain her condition of prosperous independence or whether they want to contribute her vast resources to a United Arab State led by Egypt; whether they want to maintain the old special links with the West; whether they are positive neutralists like Nasser; or whether they incline towards the Soviet block.

To my mind the odds are heavily in favour of an association between Iraq and Colonel Nassers United Arab Republic, with all that such a link would imply; but we dont really know.

The New Government, under Brigadier Abdul Karim Kassem, has done so many things in so short a time, has upset so many rigidities, and has instituted so many innovations that it is difficult to descry for certain the shape of its policies. It has for example, expressed its regrets to Britain for the assault on the Embassy and has stuck outside the ruined consulate a reproving message to the mob You should not have done this: these are your friends. The Embassy will probably be functioning again in its own building in a few days.

Relations with West It has expressed its admiration for Nasser, but it has reportedly made clear that it intends to preserve the national independence of Iraq. It has dissolved the Arab Union with Jordan, but maintains that the revolution was purely an internal convulsion that will not affect the welcome to journalists from the West. Its relationship with the Western Powers is obviously a peculiar and precarious one, not only because the Western Governments do not recognise it but also because of the Anglo-American landings to the west, which some Iraqis still view as a precursor of a counter-revolutionary assault on Bagdad; yet the Iraq Petroleum Company still seems to be functioning normally and there has been no interruption of the flow of oil to Europe.

Certainly the new Government seems to be in firm control of the whole country and reports current in Jordan of dissident armies bearing down on Bagdad are nonsense. Nearly all the members of the previous Government are under arrest, together with many miscellaneous appendages of the ancient regime. Sixty-eight men are listed as persons who are accused of embezzling peoples property. Corruption seems to be the charge most often levelled against the old order. As the newspaper AI Bilad said this morning: The small ruling clique simply executed the will of the imperialists to embezzle our wealth.

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Military coup in Iraq ousts monarchy - archive, 1958 - The Guardian

Iraq has announced it's offering financial rewards for information regarding the whereabouts of dozens of Indian citizens believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in 2014.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafarivisited India Monday to discuss his country's efforts to find the 39 Indian construction workers with Indian Foreign MinisterSushma Swaraj. While Indian officials remained quiet about what exactly was said during the meeting, Jaafari said afterward that Iraq still had "no substantial information" as to the location or fate of the suspected ISIS captives, The Hindustan Times reported. As the final pockets of ISIS members are cleared in Iraq, Baghdad has apparently upped the ante byputting an undisclosed amount of money on the table for anyone who is able to find the missing Indians.

Related: U.S. ally Iraq turns to Russia for military support, oil deals and nation building

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"There are financial incentives from the Iraqi government for people who help us to locate those Indians," Jaafari said after speaking with Swaraj, according to a tweet by New Delhibased Asia News Internationalthat was later shared by Swaraj's official account. "We are trying to follow news gained through intelligence sources, and we consider that all the Indians are alive."

Rakesh holds up a photograph of his father Balwant, an Indian worker who has been kidnapped in Iraq, at a Gurudwara (Sikh temple) before meeting India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi, June 19, 2014. Balwant was one of about 39 Indian construction workers kidnapped by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) when it overran Iraq's second largest city of Mosul in 2014. More than three years later, their fate remains unknown. Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Swaraj last week brought up the possibility that the Indians were at the Badush prison, where ISIS slaughtered hundreds of Shiite Muslims during the group's lightning advance nationwide in 2014. The prison is situated west of Iraq's second city, Mosul, where the Indian laborers were reportedly abducted after ISIS overran the city that year. After Iraqi President Haider al-Abadi declared Iraqi forces and their allies had defeated ISIS in Mosul earlier this month, Swaraj said she sent Indian Minister of State for External AffairsVijay Kumar Singh to the northern Kurdish Iraqi city of Erbil in order to investigate any leads,The Times of India reported.

While residual fighting near Badush reportedly restricted access to the restive region, Swaraj said she learned that the Indians had been transferred to do agricultural work before being sent to the prison, and that the Indians may have remained there. A follow-up report disputed this, citing a commander of Iraq's elite counterterror Golden Division, which played a crucial role in expelling ISIS.

"I have no information about the abducted Indians but there is nothing at the prison anymore," Brigadier General Abdul Amin al-Kazraji told The Hindustan Times.

Less than a month after the 39 Indian workers went missing in 2014, a separate group of Indian nurses wasreturned to India after being held captive by ISIS in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, NDTV reported.

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Iraq Will Give Money to Anyone Who Can Find the Missing Indians Kidnapped by ISIS - Newsweek