1 October 2026
Eritrea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on 1 October 2026 that it was severing all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia.
The announcement followed Ethiopia's decision to shut its embassy in Asmara and to declare 10 Eritrean diplomats persona non grata, giving them 48 hours to leave.
Ethiopia said the expelled diplomats posed a direct threat to its national security.
Eritrea said it had no option but to reciprocate in kind.
The rupture came after heavy fighting broke out in northern Ethiopia between federal forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front; Ethiopia said Eritrea was supporting the TPLF.
Eritrea became independent of Ethiopia in 1993, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had normalised relations with Asmara in 2018.
Eritrean diplomats declared persona non grata:
10
Time given to leave:
48 hours
Eritrean independence:
1993
Why it matters for exams: A complete diplomatic break between two Horn of Africa states tests both the Vienna Convention vocabulary of expulsion and the map and history of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
persona non grata person not welcome — A declaration by which a receiving state requires a foreign diplomat to leave, without having to give reasons.
TPLF Tigray People's Liberation Front — The armed political movement based in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region.
1 October 2026
Algeria's National People's Assembly, the lower house of parliament, voted on 1 October 2026 to amend the penal code so that the death penalty can be imposed for deliberately setting fire to forests, woods or fields.
The same amendment extends capital punishment to child abduction committed with aggravating circumstances.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune proposed the change in September 2026 after wildfires in the north-east of the country with an official toll of 12 dead.
Algeria has maintained a moratorium on executions since 1993, although death sentences have continued to be handed down.
Justice Minister Lotfi Boudjemaa said the death penalty was the appropriate legal response to curb these crimes.
The bill must now be reviewed by the Council of the Nation, the upper house, before the president can ratify it. Amnesty International opposed the measure.
Official wildfire death toll cited:
12
Moratorium on executions since:
1993
Why it matters for exams: The item carries a named legislature, a two-chamber legislative route and a dated environmental trigger, all of which make good objective questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Council of the Nation Majlis al-Umma — The upper house of Algeria's bicameral parliament, which must review bills passed by the lower house.
moratorium temporary suspension — Here, a standing practice of not carrying out death sentences even though courts may pass them.
1 October 2026
A transit centre for people needing Ebola treatment, in the Kigonze camp in Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was destroyed by fire on the evening of 29 September 2026.
Julien Harneis, the UN's senior Ebola response official in the country, said that when a centre is lost, capacity and investment are lost and the work has to start again, and above all people do not get the care they need.
The outbreak has recorded more than 8,000 confirmed infections including 4,000 deaths across seven provinces since the emergency was declared in mid-May 2026.
Ituri remains the epicentre of the outbreak, and Ituri's own Mongala health region has reported 346 confirmed cases and 149 deaths since the first infection was detected on 18 May.
The Kigonze camp had sheltered some 19,000 people fleeing violence in the east of the country and now lies abandoned, thousands having fled in recent days.
Confirmed infections since mid-May 2026:
more than 8,000
Deaths:
4,000
Provinces affected:
7
Mongala health region (in Ituri):
346 confirmed cases, 149 deaths
Why it matters for exams: Outbreak geography and case-fatality figures are standard objective material, and this one adds the UN response structure in a conflict setting.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
transit centre transit centre for suspected cases — A facility where people with suspected Ebola are isolated and assessed before being moved to a treatment unit.
1 October 2026
The UN General Assembly met on 1 October 2026 to consider the Security Council veto that blocked renewal of the Panel of Experts monitoring sanctions on Iran.
The Assembly meets automatically in such cases under the veto initiative, the standing mandate created by General Assembly resolution 76/262.
The United Kingdom's Permanent Representative, Ambassador Sarah MacIntosh, told the Assembly that UN sanctions on Iranian proliferation remain fully in force and are binding on all Member States despite the vetoes.
She said Iran has accumulated over 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, a level no other non-nuclear-weapon state has reached.
The draft resolution, which would have extended the panel's mandate by one year, was vetoed by Russia and China on 18 September 2026; 11 members voted in favour and Somalia and Pakistan abstained.
Enriched uranium stockpile cited:
over 400 kilograms at 60 per cent
Security Council vote on the draft:
11 in favour, 2 vetoes, 2 abstentions
Veto initiative resolution:
76/262
Why it matters for exams: The veto initiative under resolution 76/262 is exactly the kind of UN procedural mechanism examiners ask about, and the item ties it to a dated, specific veto.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
veto initiative General Assembly resolution 76/262 — A standing mandate under which the General Assembly meets to debate any situation in which a veto is cast in the Security Council.
Panel of Experts Panel of Experts — A group of specialists appointed to monitor and report on compliance with a Security Council sanctions regime.
1 October 2026
NASA said on 1 October 2026 that astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have sorted extreme debris disks into two distinct classes by their mineral composition.
The team studied 21 such systems, 16 observed with Webb and 5 drawn from archival Spitzer Space Telescope data, using mid-infrared spectra.
About one third of the disks are silica-rich, which points to high-energy collisions between Mars-sized bodies with a great deal of vaporisation.
The remaining two thirds are silica-poor, indicating lower-energy impacts between Moon-sized objects.
Silica-rich disks were found only around stars younger than 300 million years.
The work was led by Kate Su of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, with Agnes Kospal and Attila Moor of Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, and was published in The Astrophysical Journal.
NASA compared the events to the impact of the Mars-sized body Theia with the early Earth, about 100 million years after the solar system formed, which is thought to have made the Moon.
Systems studied:
21 (16 Webb, 5 Spitzer archive)
Silica-rich share:
about one third
Age limit for silica-rich disks:
younger than 300 million years
Journal:
The Astrophysical Journal
Why it matters for exams: Webb results are regularly set in science sections, and this one carries clean numbers, a named journal and the Theia giant-impact link.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
debris disk debris disk — A ring of dust and rubble around a star, produced when rocky bodies collide and break up.
Theia Theia — The Mars-sized body thought to have struck the early Earth, with the debris forming the Moon.
30 September 2026
Nature published on 30 September 2026 a study that reclassifies Westlothiana lizziae, one of the best known fossils from East Kirkton in West Lothian, Scotland.
The specimen dates to the Early Carboniferous, in the Visean stage.
It had been widely cited as the earliest terrestrially adapted stem amniote, that is a land-adapted close relative of the amniotes; the new phylogenetic analyses return it instead as a stem tetrapod.
The evidence includes unexpected plesiomorphies of the skull roof, palate, braincase and mandible, together with aquatic adaptations such as an ossified internal gill skeleton and extensive denticles on the palate and mandible.
The authors conclude that terrestrial adaptations, including an amniote-like pedal formula, the loss of fin-like forelimb function and superficially claw-like terminal phalanges, evolved in a mosaic fashion in a transitional, amphibious context before the origin of the tetrapod crown group.
Fossil:
Westlothiana lizziae
Site:
East Kirkton, West Lothian, Scotland
Age:
Early Carboniferous (Visean)
Why it matters for exams: The water-to-land transition is standard biology and the item supplies the exact fossil, the place and the geological stage.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
tetrapod four-limbed vertebrate — The group of vertebrates with four limbs, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
amniote amniote — A vertebrate whose embryo develops in a fluid-filled amniotic sac, allowing reproduction away from water.
30 September 2026
Nature published on 30 September 2026 a study of Asgard archaea, the closest known prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes.
Using live imaging, the researchers saw cells grow and retract protrusions at 1.5 to 4.8 micrometres per minute, rearranging their membrane architecture within minutes.
Both the Lokiarchaea and Hodarchaea lineages crawled along surfaces at 1.6 to 3.4 micrometres per minute, speeds that match the crawling of eukaryotic cells.
The movement depends on Lokiactin, an archaeal counterpart of actin; actin inhibitors, particularly Swinholide A, stopped it at concentrations similar to those that affect eukaryotic cells.
Crawling motility of this kind had not been reported in prokaryotes before.
The authors argue that membrane plasticity and actin-driven movement may have been crucial to the emergence of the first eukaryotic cells, about 2 billion years ago.
Protrusion growth and retraction:
1.5-4.8 micrometres per minute
Crawling speed:
1.6-3.4 micrometres per minute
Protein involved:
Lokiactin
Why it matters for exams: The archaea-to-eukaryote question is a live topic in cell biology and evolution, and this paper gives it a dated, quotable result.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Asgard archaea Asgard archaea — A group of archaea that carry many eukaryote-like proteins and are regarded as the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes.
actin actin — A protein that forms filaments inside cells and drives changes in cell shape and movement.
1 October 2026
The International Chess Federation published its October 2026 rating list on 1 October 2026.
Bodhana Sivanandan of England became the youngest Woman Grandmaster in history at the age of 11, after gaining 28 rating points at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov returned to the top five of the open list with a rating of 2780.
Zhu Jiner reclaimed second place on the women's list after scoring 9 points at the Olympiad.
The biggest gains on the list were by Mariam Mkrtchyan of Armenia, up 47 points to 2421, and Mobina Alinasab of Iran, also up 47 points to 2364, followed by Elnaz Kaliakhmet of Kazakhstan, up 36 points to 2383.
Savitha Shri B of India gained 23 points at the Olympiad to cross 2400, and is now rated 2405.
Youngest Woman Grandmaster:
Bodhana Sivanandan (England), aged 11
Rating points gained at Samarkand:
28
Abdusattorov's rating:
2780
Savitha Shri B's rating:
2405
Why it matters for exams: A world record in a recognised international federation's own rating list is the kind of dated fact set in sports and awards questions.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
WGM Woman Grandmaster — A lifetime chess title awarded by FIDE, below Grandmaster, earned through norms and a rating threshold.
Elo rating Elo rating — The numerical strength rating used in chess, updated from results against other rated players.
1 October 2026
The International Chess Federation published on 1 October 2026 the main decisions of its 2026 General Assembly, held on 26 and 27 September 2026 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, during the 46th Chess Olympiad.
Timur Turlov was elected President of FIDE and Viswanathan Anand was elected Deputy President; four Vice-Presidents were also elected.
The Assembly approved the creation of a FIDE rating system for Fischer Random Chess, also called Chess960, to be elaborated and implemented no later than 1 June 2027.
It cleared the appointment of up to five Honorary Vice-Presidents who may take part in the work of the Council with all rights except voting.
It amended the FIDE Charter so that the English and French institutional names, International Chess Federation and Federation Internationale des Echecs, are presented jointly.
It noted the readiness of both the Qatar Chess Association and the Georgia Chess Federation to host the 2030 Chess Olympiad and instructed the FIDE Management Board to negotiate with Qatar first, the right to sign passing to Georgia if the required official guarantees are not provided; an Extraordinary General Assembly was set to meet online in late 2026 to review the 2027 and provisional 2028 budgets.
General Assembly dates and place:
26-27 September 2026, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
President elected:
Timur Turlov
Deputy President elected:
Viswanathan Anand
Chess960 rating system by:
1 June 2027
Why it matters for exams: Office-bearers of world sporting bodies and the venues of their events are routinely asked, and the Chess960 decision is a fresh, checkable fact.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Chess960 Fischer Random Chess — A chess variant in which the back-row pieces are shuffled into one of 960 legal starting positions.
1 October 2026
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, and nine independent rights experts said on 1 October 2026 that authorities in Tennessee should not pursue any further attempt to execute Christa Pike in the United States.
Pike was denied clemency and survived two lethal injection attempts; one hour before her execution a court halted it and then lifted the stay.
Turk said the prolonged physical and mental suffering arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent and cruel, and reiterated that the death penalty has no place in any society.
Nine experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council said Tennessee must immediately and irrevocably end the cruelty by commuting Pike's death sentence, calling two botched attempts a flagrant breach of the prohibition of torture and of arbitrary deprivation of life.
The UN rights chief also pointed to unresolved questions about Pike's fair trial, and the statement came amid what his office described as an increase in the number of executions in the United States.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
Volker Turk
Failed execution attempts:
2
Human Rights Council experts who spoke:
9
Why it matters for exams: The item names the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the special procedures of the Human Rights Council, both standard polity and international organisation topics.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights — The UN office in Geneva that leads the organisation's human rights work and supports the Human Rights Council.
commutation commutation of sentence — The replacement of a sentence with a lighter one, for example a death sentence with imprisonment.
Background
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea sets limits for coastal-state maritime zones, measured from baselines.
Article 3 lets a State set the breadth of its territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles.
Article 33 says the contiguous zone may not extend beyond 24 nautical miles.
Article 57 says the exclusive economic zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles.
Territorial sea:
up to 12 nautical miles
Contiguous zone:
up to 24 nautical miles
Exclusive economic zone:
up to 200 nautical miles
Why it matters for exams: Maritime-zone distances are a favourite numerical recall in international law questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC