4 November 2026
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York that two long-running missions are winding down at the same time. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, still has about 7,500 peacekeepers and is due to stop operations at the end of the year. It has patrolled the border with Israel since 1978. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, MINURSO, closed on 31 October after 35 years and is now being liquidated. Lacroix said about 10,000 people live between the Blue Line, drawn by the UN in 2000, and the forward defence line Israel has set up inside Lebanon. Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have warned of a security vacuum once the peacekeepers go. The Secretary-General put options before the Security Council in June, but the Council has not agreed on what should follow. Russia vetoed a United States draft on Western Sahara, and a rival Russian text did not get the nine votes it needed.
UNIFIL strength:
about 7,500 peacekeepers
UNIFIL on the Israel border since:
1978
MINURSO duration:
35 years; closed on 31 October
People between the Blue Line and Israel's forward line:
about 10,000
Votes needed in the Security Council:
nine
Why it matters for exams: UNIFIL stands for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon and has operated since 1978, while the Blue Line is the UN-drawn line of withdrawal of 2000 - standard International Relations facts.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
UNIFIL United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon — A UN peacekeeping force set up in 1978 to patrol southern Lebanon and the border with Israel.
MINURSO United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara — A UN mission set up in 1991 to organise a referendum in Western Sahara; it closed in 2026.
Blue Line Blue Line — The line the UN drew in 2000 to confirm Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
4 November 2026
The World Health Organization has released a report titled 'A generation missing out: Global trends in adolescent physical activity, 2010-2025'. Its estimates rest on 389 surveys of the general population, taken in 140 countries and territories and covering more than 3.2 million young people. About one in four adolescents, some 240 million aged 11 to 17, did not get even 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity on any day in the week before they were asked. On average, adolescents were active on 2.7 days a week, and only 14 per cent were active on all seven days. In 2025, 86 per cent reported fewer than seven active days, the same as in 2010. Girls fare worse than boys: 28 per cent of girls reported no active days against 22 per cent of boys. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has made almost no progress in fifteen years. The global target of cutting physical inactivity by 15 per cent by 2030 is off track, with no country on course to meet it.
Report:
A generation missing out: Global trends in adolescent physical activity, 2010-2025
Surveys used:
389 surveys from 140 countries and territories
Adolescents covered:
more than 3.2 million
With no active day:
about one in four, or 240 million aged 11 to 17
Average active days a week:
2.7
Global target:
15 per cent relative reduction in physical inactivity by 2030
Why it matters for exams: The World Health Organization is the UN health agency headquartered at Geneva and led by a Director-General, and its 2030 target of a 15 per cent cut in physical inactivity is a Health question.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
WHO World Health Organization — The United Nations specialised agency for public health, headquartered at Geneva.
5 November 2026
A Hong Kong court has sentenced Joshua Wong, once the best-known face of the city's pro-democracy movement, to 10 years in prison.
He had pleaded guilty to colluding with foreign forces, an offence under the National Security Law; it is his second case under that law.
Beijing imposed the law on Hong Kong in 2020, after the large pro-democracy protests of the previous year.
Wong has already spent about six years in jail and had been due for release in January.
Hundreds of campaigners and ordinary residents have been arrested under the law.
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China, governed under the 'one country, two systems' principle.
Sentence:
10 years
Law imposed:
2020
Why it matters for exams: Hong Kong's status as a Special Administrative Region under 'one country, two systems' and the 2020 National Security Law are common international-affairs questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
SAR Special Administrative Region — Hong Kong and Macau are China's two SARs.
4 November 2026
Israel's President Isaac Herzog has received the official results of last week's general election from the Central Election Committee.
He then began consultations with party leaders on whom to task with forming a coalition government.
Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor that of his rival Gadi Eisenkot won a majority in the 120-member Knesset.
Arab-led parties made historic gains in the vote.
Herzog told the leaders that not every promise could be kept if a fresh election is to be avoided.
In Israel the President, as head of state, chooses the member of the Knesset who gets the first chance to form a government.
Whoever he picks gets 28 days to build a coalition, which can be stretched by up to 14 more days.
Knesset seats:
120
Why it matters for exams: Israel's President Isaac Herzog, the 120-member Knesset and the President's role in naming who forms the government are standard world-polity facts.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Knesset Israel's unicameral parliament — Has 120 members.
4 November 2026
NASA has unveiled the X-70 Fractal, a new crewed experimental aircraft that can be quickly reconfigured for research.
It was presented at the UP.Summit at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The aircraft will test advanced flight-control and manoeuvrability technologies not yet shown in crewed flight.
It can carry up to 2,000 pounds of experimental payloads, inside and outside the airframe.
Its cruise speed is Mach 0.75, its ceiling 45,000 feet and its range about 1,500 nautical miles.
NASA expects its first flight under the agency within two years.
The X-70 joins NASA's line of X-planes, which began with the Bell X-1 that first broke the sound barrier in 1947.
Payload:
2,000 pounds
Cruise speed:
Mach 0.75
Why it matters for exams: NASA's X-plane series, from the Bell X-1 that first broke the sound barrier to the X-59, and terms such as Mach number, are standard science questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Mach number Speed divided by the local speed of sound — Mach 1 is the speed of sound.
4 November 2026
At least 30 hippopotamuses have died of anthrax in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the past month, Nature reports.
The carcasses were first found in September in Virunga National Park in the east of the country, and laboratory tests confirmed anthrax.
Anthrax is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, whose spores live naturally in soil and can infect livestock and wild animals.
No human cases have been reported; the main risk to people is handling infected carcasses or eating contaminated meat.
Park teams are disposing of carcasses safely and report no new deaths in the past two weeks.
The outbreak adds to the DRC's ongoing Ebola and cholera outbreaks.
Hippos killed:
at least 30
Why it matters for exams: Anthrax and its cause, Bacillus anthracis, and Virunga National Park in the eastern DR Congo are standard health and geography questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
4 November 2026
Three people with drug-resistant epilepsy saw their monthly seizures fall by more than 90% after an experimental gene therapy, Nature reports.
Viruses carrying a gene were infused into the small patch of brain tissue where each person's seizures began.
The gene makes neurons respond to a specific drug, which then acts like a dimmer switch on the therapy.
Combining gene therapy with a drug in this way is called chemogenetics, and it lets doctors adjust the strength of treatment.
The results were reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by a team from Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University in Beijing.
No serious side effects were seen, though experts caution that the trial was very small.
Fall in seizures:
more than 90%
Participants:
three
Why it matters for exams: Gene therapy, the use of viral vectors, and epilepsy as a neurological disorder are recurring science-and-health questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Chemogenetics Gene therapy paired with a drug that switches the engineered cells on or off — Lets the treatment's strength be tuned.
4 November 2026
Several agreements were signed in Riyadh on Wednesday in the presence of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Among them is a defence cooperation agreement between the two countries' defence ministries; its terms were not made public.
The Saudi Fund for Development also signed six concessional loan agreements worth more than $403m with Syria's Finance Ministry.
The money is for energy, housing, health, water, civil defence and other infrastructure, including $90m to repair the Aleppo thermal power plant.
It was al-Sharaa's second visit to Riyadh in less than a month.
Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia and Damascus is the capital of Syria.
Saudi loans:
more than $403m
Why it matters for exams: Heads of state such as Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and West Asian capitals are frequent world-affairs questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
World Tsunami Awareness Day falls on 5 November every year. The United Nations General Assembly designated the day in December 2015 through resolution A/RES/70/203. The theme for 2026 is 'Be tsunami ready: Resilience starts with you'. The observance is facilitated by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, known as UNDRR, working with the rest of the UN system. The day was the idea of Japan, which has built up long experience of tsunami early warning and of rebuilding after a disaster. The day is tied to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the fifteen-year global agreement adopted in March 2015 whose main aim is a large cut in deaths from disasters. For India, tsunami early warnings come from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services at Hyderabad, an institution under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Date:
5 November every year
Designating resolution:
A/RES/70/203, adopted in December 2015
2026 theme:
Be tsunami ready: Resilience starts with you
Lead UN office:
UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)
Linked framework:
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, adopted in March 2015
Why it matters for exams: World Tsunami Awareness Day is 5 November, designated by UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/70/203 and facilitated by UNDRR, and it is tied to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 - a standard Disaster Management question.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC
In plain words
UNDRR United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction — The UN office that coordinates disaster risk reduction work and oversees the Sendai Framework.
Sendai Framework Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 — The global agreement on reducing disaster risk, adopted at Sendai in Japan in 2015.
Background
The Paris Agreement came into force on 4 November 2016, less than a year after COP21 adopted it in Paris on 12 December 2015.
Article 21 set a double test: it would start 30 days after at least 55 Parties to the UNFCCC, together responsible for an estimated 55 per cent or more of global greenhouse gas emissions, had ratified it.
The UN Secretary-General is the depositary, and the treaty opened for signature at UN Headquarters in New York on 22 April 2016.
India signed on that first day and ratified on 2 October 2016.
The UN treaty record now lists 194 Parties, made up of 193 countries and the European Union.
Its core aim is to keep warming well below 2°C and to try for 1.5°C; UNFCCC Parties meet for COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November.
Entered into force:
4 November 2016
Entry-into-force threshold:
55 Parties, 55% of global emissions
Parties:
194
India ratified:
2 October 2016
Why it matters for exams: The Paris Agreement's entry into force, its 55-Parties-and-55-per-cent threshold, its depositary and India's ratification are standard environment and international-relations questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Depositary — The official who keeps a treaty and records signatures and ratifications.
Background
New Zealand votes in a general election on 7 November, and smaller parties may decide who governs.
The country elects its Parliament every three years under the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system.
Each voter casts two ballots: one for a local electorate candidate and one for a party.
Winners in the 71 electorates take their seats directly; seven electorates are reserved for Maori, New Zealand's Indigenous people.
The party vote decides each party's overall share, and about 49 list seats are added so that seats match votes.
A party needs 5 percent of the party vote or one electorate win to qualify, and 61 seats is usually a majority in the 120-seat Parliament.
Parliament seats:
120
Party-vote threshold:
5 percent
Why it matters for exams: Electoral systems such as New Zealand's mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, compared with India's first-past-the-post, are a standard polity question.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
MMP Mixed-member proportional — Electorate seats plus list seats that make the result proportional.