Guardian Digest

On 21 July 1969, Neil Armstrong swung open the hatch of his spacecraft and clambered down a short ladder towards the surface of the moon. The Apollo 11 moon mission came only 66 years after Orville Wright made the first successful flight in an aeroplane. Armstrong captured a sense of that progression in the indelible first words he spoke on the lunar surface: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” That was nearly 57 years ago. No human has visited the moon since the crew of Apollo 17 in 1972. As early as this week, that may change – sort of. Nasa is planning to send four…

Odd things are happening in the markets. Last Monday, 15 minutes before Donald Trump posted an announcement that “productive talks” with Iran had taken place, oil traders placed half a billion dollars’ worth of bets on the future price of oil. Trump’s statement triggered a drop in crude oil prices, and it seems as if some people knew that the announcement was coming, and so a profitable wager was made. Do not be envious; some people are just born lucky. We do not know if the transactions were made with prior knowledge of political developments, but it’s a hell of a coincidence. It all appears…

Iran has warned the US that it is prepared to confront any ground assault, accusing Washington of secretly planning a land attack while publicly seeking talks, as the war that has killed thousands of people and caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies entered its second month. In a message published to mark 30 days since the start of the war, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said: “The enemy signals negotiation in public, while in secret it plots a ground attack.” “Our firing continues,” Ghalibaf said. “Our missiles are in place. Our determination…

The towns that are the bulwark of China’s energy security can, at a moment of global crisis, appear deceptively quiet. Trucks carrying oil trundle along wide-open highways that have little traffic, while a few boarded-up shops in crumbling low-rise buildings hint at a long-forgotten local buzz. A ramshackle noodle shop serving hand-pulled ribbons of dough was empty at lunchtime, save for a few construction workers and a teacher watching videos on Douyin, the social media platform, with his meal. But its boss wasn’t worried about low footfall. Peak time was midnight, he said, when nearby oil…

Activists and lawyers in Africa are calling for urgent action to protect women, girls and boys as digital violence surges across the continent. A massive rise in internet users, coupled with huge numbers of people aged under 30, has fuelled an increase in gendered online violence across the continent, according to experts, by giving perpetrators new tools to control and silence women and girls, and influence boys. “Unfortunately the world offline is not safe, equal and inclusive. But the world online is proliferating that to such an extent that it’s creating a foundation for a very, very…

The Daily Telegraph has apologised to a popular Middle Eastern restaurant for “causing distress” after it sent a pro-Israel activist to the Sydney eatery as part of its so-called operation “undercover Jew”. The apology was published on page two of the News Corp newspaper as part of an agreed joint statement to resolve a now settled legal dispute between the restaurant Cairo Takeaway and the pro-Israel activist Ofir Birenbaum. The restaurant and Birenbaum also published the joint statement on their social media accounts, with Cairo also apologising unreservedly to Birenbaum. But, just hours…