Arab Barghouti (Jerusalem, 35) says that “at the end of the day” he does not think of Marwan Barghouti as a politician, nor as the Palestinian leader of the Second Intifada (2000–2005), who was sentenced by Israel to five life terms in a trial full of irregularities 24 years ago. He thinks of himself as the son who wants his father “to come home.”

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Since May 14, it has been legal for an adult man to rape a girl in Afghanistan. On that day, the Taliban enacted Decree No. 18, or the “Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses,” a regulation that legalizes child marriage without even requiring a performance of supposed consent from the girl; her silence is enough.

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Before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine turned it into the new pariah of the West, Iran was the most sanctioned country on Earth: more than 3,600 economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and various other countries, measures that forced the Islamic Republic to reshape its economic policy to circumvent these obstacles. That included its vital oil sector, which U.S. President Donald Trump hoped to choke through the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the route through which Iran exports 90% of the crude it sells abroad.

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Talks to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz appear, for the first time in three months, to be moderately on track. At least that is the impression conveyed by public statements and leaks from both sides: water is beginning to fill the deep negotiating well, which until now had been practically dry.

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