31 October 2026
The United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia, known as UNTMIS, wound up its work on 31 October 2026.
Its closure ends three decades of United Nations political missions in the Horn of Africa country.
Raisedon Zenenga, the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia and Officer-in-Charge of UNTMIS, spoke at the ceremony marking the closure.
He said the UN's political engagement in Somalia had been one of persistence, partnership and adaptation, and that the closure follows considerable progress.
Somalia's central institutions collapsed in the early 1990s, and successive UN missions supported peacebuilding, governance and national reconciliation since then.
Somali federal and national institutions will now carry full responsibility for the country's recovery.
About 25 UN entities continue to work in Somalia on humanitarian and development support.
Mission closed:
UNTMIS
Date of closure:
31 October 2026
UN entities still in Somalia:
About 25
Why it matters for exams: UN political missions and the location of Somalia in the Horn of Africa are standard international questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
UNTMIS United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia — The UN political mission in Somalia that wound up on 31 October 2026.
30 October 2026
A two-day meeting of G20 foreign ministers opened at Atlanta in the United States, which holds the group's presidency.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who hosted the meeting, scrapped the customary family photograph before the sessions began.
Top diplomats from several European countries had said they would not appear in a group photograph with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said there would be no family photograph with European partners and Lavrov together.
Rubio opened the talks by calling it a critical moment and pointing to disruptions to global energy and trade.
The meeting is a precursor to the G20 leaders' summit due in December, to be hosted by President Donald Trump in Miami.
The G20 brings together the European Union and major economies including the United States, Russia, Germany, India, China and Brazil.
Venue of the ministers' meeting:
Atlanta, United States
Host:
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Next leaders' summit:
Miami, December
Why it matters for exams: Which country holds the G20 presidency and who hosts the next summit are repeatedly asked.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
G20 Group of Twenty — A forum of nineteen countries, the European Union and the African Union for international economic cooperation.
30 October 2026
A new alert from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification covers the Democratic Republic of the Congo from September 2026 to June 2027.
About 28.8 million people, or 23 per cent of those analysed, are in IPC Phase 3 or above, which is high acute food insecurity.
More than 3.6 million of them, about 3 per cent, are in Phase 4, the emergency level.
For January to June 2027 the projection rises to 30.3 million people in Phase 3 or above, including 4.2 million in Phase 4.
North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri are the worst hit, with 10.4 million people in Phase 3 or above.
The territories of Djugu, Fizi, Shabunda and Walungu are in Phase 4.
Conflict and displacement in the east, economic shocks, rising food and fuel prices, falling humanitarian aid and El Nino-linked flooding are named as the drivers, alongside an Ebola outbreak that has spread to eight provinces.
In Phase 3 or above now:
About 28.8 million
In Phase 4 now:
More than 3.6 million
Projection for January to June 2027:
30.3 million, including 4.2 million in Phase 4
Why it matters for exams: The IPC and its five-phase scale, where Phase 5 means famine, are asked in reports and indices questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
IPC Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — A UN-backed scale that grades acute food insecurity in five phases, the fifth being famine.
30 October 2026
Government leaders and urban planners met at Fuzhou in China to discuss the global housing crisis as the world marked World Cities Day.
The UN's urban development agency UN-Habitat said up to 3.4 billion people face inadequate housing conditions.
More than a billion of them live in informal settlements and slums.
Ageing infrastructure, soaring housing costs and worsening climate change are adding to the strain on cities.
UN-Habitat put forward urban regeneration, which revives declining or neglected urban areas through economic, social and environmental improvements.
The UN Secretary-General said in his message for the day that reviving existing urban areas can create more housing, upgrade infrastructure and improve public spaces.
World Cities Day is marked on 31 October each year.
People in inadequate housing:
Up to 3.4 billion
In informal settlements and slums:
More than a billion
Global observance held at:
Fuzhou, China
Why it matters for exams: UN-Habitat and the date of World Cities Day are standard questions on UN days and agencies.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
UN-Habitat United Nations Human Settlements Programme — The UN agency for towns, cities and human settlements.
30 October 2026
New country studies by the International Labour Organization look at workplace heat stress in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
By 2040, even on a low-emissions pathway, working time lost to heat stress will equal about 147,000 full-time jobs across the two countries.
That is about 145,000 in Sri Lanka and about 2,400 in the Maldives.
Combined annual losses to national output are put at about US$ 26.6 billion by 2040, with roughly US$ 26 billion in Sri Lanka and US$ 576 million in the Maldives.
The studies say the harm is not only in the future, and that in 2023 heat stress already cost both countries working time and output compared with the 1985 to 2014 reference period.
Agriculture is the sector likely to be hit hardest in Sri Lanka, followed by services, manufacturing and construction.
In the Maldives the impact will fall most on services and construction.
Working time lost by 2040:
Equivalent of about 147,000 full-time jobs
Annual output loss by 2040:
About US$ 26.6 billion
Worst hit sector in Sri Lanka:
Agriculture
Why it matters for exams: The ILO and its tripartite structure of governments, employers and workers are repeatedly asked.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
ILO International Labour Organization — The UN agency on labour standards, with governments, employers and workers in its governance.
30 October 2026
The Southern African Development Community has launched a Labour Market Observatory for the region.
The International Labour Organization gave technical support for the new platform.
It was launched at the SADC Joint Technical Committee meeting hosted by South Africa, which currently chairs SADC.
The Observatory pools labour market statistics from member states so that employment and decent work trends can be compared across the region.
SADC Chairperson Aggy Moiloa said the Observatory should become a compass for policymaking rather than only a store of statistics.
The aim is to move the region from collecting figures to using evidence to shape employment policy.
SADC is the regional economic community of southern African countries.
New platform:
SADC Labour Market Observatory
Technical support from:
International Labour Organization
Current chair of SADC:
South Africa
Why it matters for exams: SADC and its full form are standard questions on regional organisations.
UPSC
In plain words
SADC Southern African Development Community — A regional economic community of southern African states, with its secretariat at Gaborone.
29 October 2026
NASA has issued a request for information seeking industry input on in-space servicing for the Hubble Space Telescope.
The request, issued on 29 October 2026, sets out three possibilities.
One is boosting Hubble into a higher orbit to extend its working life.
The second is servicing the telescope to improve what it can do, and the third is a controlled re-entry or orbital disposal at the end of its mission.
Responses are due by 30 November.
Hubble carries no propulsion system of its own to hold its orbit, and analysis points to re-entry in roughly 2033 to 2034, so NASA expects any mission would have to happen by 2032.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Hubble still has important science ahead of it, and Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, called the telescope a national icon.
Request issued on:
29 October 2026
Responses due by:
30 November
Expected natural re-entry:
Roughly 2033 to 2034
Why it matters for exams: Hubble, its lack of propulsion and the head of NASA are frequently asked space facts.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
RFI Request for Information — A notice an agency issues to gather ideas and capabilities from industry before deciding on a contract.
29 October 2026
A NASA-funded study published in the journal Science describes a Martian meteorite named Teghaza 001.
The rock is more than 4.1 billion years old, making it one of the oldest meteorites from Mars found on Earth.
It was discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2022 and takes its name from the salt plain of Teghaza in Mali.
The sample weighs nearly 800 grams and is one of roughly 435 known meteorites from Mars.
Zircon crystals in the rock were used to date it, and the dating shows Martian water altered it about 4.1 billion years ago, so the rock itself formed even earlier.
The lead author is Yang Liu of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the in-situ rubidium-strontium dating method was developed with Francois Tissot of Caltech.
The researchers identified thirteen possible places on Mars from which the rock could have come.
Meteorite:
Teghaza 001
Age:
More than 4.1 billion years
Weight:
Nearly 800 grams
Known Martian meteorites:
About 435
Why it matters for exams: The journal Science, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the use of zircon for dating are durable science facts.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory — NASA's centre in southern California that runs robotic planetary missions.
29 October 2026
NASA has released the first science results from TRACERS, a pair of small spacecraft studying the Earth's magnetic shield.
TRACERS stands for Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, and the two spacecraft were launched in 2025.
The results come from the first year of data from the Analyzers for Cusp Ions instruments.
They suggest that magnetic reconnection is largely a spatial process, that is, the place where reconnection happens shifts over time rather than the process itself changing.
Magnetic reconnection is the violent snapping and rejoining of magnetic field lines that drives space weather.
The findings appear in a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
David Miles of the University of Iowa is the mission's principal investigator, and the Southwest Research Institute at San Antonio supports the mission.
Mission:
TRACERS, a pair of spacecraft launched in 2025
Published in:
Journal of Geophysical Research
Principal investigator:
David Miles, University of Iowa
Why it matters for exams: The TRACERS mission name and what magnetic reconnection is are durable space-science facts.
UPSC
In plain words
TRACERS Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites — Two NASA spacecraft that fly in tandem to study magnetic reconnection near the Earth's poles.
30 October 2026
The Vatican's press office said on Friday that Pope Leo XIV had posted a ballot in Chicago, the city of his birth.
No pope before him is known to have taken part in a general election in the United States.
The ballot went in ahead of the American midterm elections of 3 November.
He was born Robert Francis Prevost and holds citizenship of the United States as well as of Peru, where he spent more than twenty years as a priest and a bishop.
The Holy See said he has cast a vote whenever he was entitled to do so, because he holds that taking part in democratic processes is both a right and a duty of a citizen.
It did not say which way he voted.
Federal law in the United States lets citizens who live outside the country vote by absentee ballot.
First of its kind:
First pontiff to vote in a US general election
Birth name:
Robert Francis Prevost
Ballot cast at:
Chicago
Why it matters for exams: The identity and birth name of Pope Leo XIV and the Holy See as a state are asked facts.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
Holy See Holy See — The central government of the Catholic Church, which has its own international legal standing.
30 October 2026
A notice put up on the website of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal said its president and his deputy had been taken off duty for the next month.
The president is Bogdan Swieczkowski, and fellow judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska was named to run the institution in the meantime.
Riot police were sent to the Tribunal's grounds in Warsaw after a judge warned them that the safety of judges and staff might be at risk.
Supporters of Law and Justice, the party that governed Poland from 2015 to 2023, stayed outside the building through the evening.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended the step, calling the work of bringing back the rule of law a duty that is difficult but unavoidable.
President Karol Nawrocki called off a visit to Senegal, saying he had to be in the country at such a moment, and walked into the Tribunal building after he returned.
He had earlier declined to swear in five judges of the top court whom Parliament had nominated.
Suspension period:
One month
Acting head of the Tribunal:
Anna Korwin-Piotrowska
Prime Minister:
Donald Tusk
Why it matters for exams: Poland's Constitutional Tribunal, its Prime Minister and its President are current-affairs facts about the European Union's rule-of-law debate.
UPSC
In plain words
PiS Law and Justice — The Polish conservative party that was in government from 2015 to 2023.
Background
This background goes with the World Cities Day observance at Fuzhou, where urban regeneration was put forward as a way out of the housing crisis.
World Cities Day falls on 31 October every year and was marked for the first time in 2014.
It was created by General Assembly resolution 68/239.
The day closes Urban October, the month of urban events that opens with World Habitat Day.
As with World Habitat Day, the global observance moves to a different city each year and is built around a chosen theme.
The aim of the day is to draw attention to how the world is urbanising, to encourage cooperation between countries and to push for cities that are fair, prosperous and liveable.
The theme for 2026 is "Regenerating the City: Adequate Housing for All" and the global observance is being held at Fuzhou in China.
It is organised jointly by China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Fujian Provincial People's Government and UN-Habitat, with the Fuzhou Municipal People's Government as host.
Observed on:
31 October every year
First celebrated:
2014
Created by:
General Assembly resolution 68/239
Theme for 2026:
Regenerating the City: Adequate Housing for All
Why it matters for exams: The date of World Cities Day, the General Assembly resolution that created it and UN-Habitat as the UN agency for cities are asked facts.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
UN-Habitat United Nations Human Settlements Programme — The UN agency for towns, cities and human settlements, and a co-organiser of the global observance.
Urban October Urban October — The month of urban events that runs from World Habitat Day to World Cities Day.