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BERLIN — Germany is heading into winter with its natural gas storage at a record seasonal low, prompting the country's gas storage industry to demand stricter filling rules after reserves reached just 61.35% on 30 October 2026, well short of the November target. Gas storage industry association INES said on Sunday, 1 November 2026, that Germany must review and improve the mechanism for filling its underground caverns, warning that the failure to meet storage targets shows reserves for coming winters must be guaranteed more rigorously. Berlin has said there will be no supply bottlenecks, but the shortfall has reignited a dispute with Italy and raised fears about winter energy costs across Europe. Illustration: An underground natural gas storage cavern in Germany with a low fill gauge. This is an AI-generated illustration, not a real photograph of the facility. What Happened As of 30 October, German gas storage stood at 61.35%, according to data cited by Reuters, compared with a...

SUVA — Fiji's military has asked Parliament to strip away its own constitutional immunity, urging lawmakers to replace a protection forged in the era of coups with a Truth, Accountability and Reconciliation Commission before a decisive vote expected on Monday, 2 November 2026. In a six-page submission to Parliament's Special Committee reviewing Constitution Amendment Bill No. 32 of 2026, Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) Commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai said the military no longer wants the legal shield that could protect it from accountability for past coups, according to reports by Mai TV Fiji and FijiGlobalNews on 30–31 October 2026. Illustration: Fiji's Parliament in Suva during the constitutional debate. This is an AI-generated illustration, not a real photograph of the event. What Happened Major-General Kalouniwai told the Special Parliamentary Select Committee that the RFMF was prepared to relinquish the immunity provisions in the proposed Consti...

SÃO PAULO — A new global cultural campaign has opened to artists, activists, schools, community groups and social movements around the world. Global Artivism Month, which runs from 1 November to 10 December 2026, invites participants in more than 100 countries to use art and culture as tools for social, economic and environmental justice. Over 40 days, local performances, exhibitions, murals, songs, films and community gatherings will be connected into a single, decentralised celebration of creativity in the service of change. Organisers say the aim is not a single festival in a single city, but a worldwide wave of locally owned activity that speaks in participants' own languages and reflects their own political realities. Illustration: A stylised sunrise relay carrying light, art and stories from region to region around the world. This is an AI-generated illustration, not a photograph of an actual event. What Happened Global Artivism Month opened on 1 November 2026, launchi...

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South Africa are back on top of Test cricket. Off-spinner Simon Harmer produced a career-defining spell of 6 for 16 on the final day at Newlands on Saturday, 31 October 2026, as Australia, chasing 288 to win the series decider, collapsed to 111 all out and lost the third Test by 176 runs. The victory sealed a 2-1 series win for the Proteas and returned them to No. 1 in the ICC men's Test team rankings, completing a comeback that began with a heavy defeat in Durban. The final day had started with all three results still possible. By lunch, only one was on the table. Kagiso Rabada struck with the new ball, Harmer spun a web through the middle and lower order, and Australia lost their last wickets before tea, bowled out in 57.1 overs. It was, by several measures, a historic afternoon for South Africa: Harmer's match figures of 10 for 120 were his first ten-wicket haul in Tests, and Rabada passed 350 Test wickets during the match. Illustration: South...

AHMEDABAD, India — A NASA space telescope that was never designed to study exploding stars has just delivered one of the clearest pictures yet of how a nova builds dust from scratch. Mining archival survey data from the SPHEREx mission, astronomers have traced the newborn dust shell around Nova Velorum 2025 — formally V572 Velorum — as it cooled from about 1,030 kelvin to roughly 480 kelvin over the course of a year, while its dust mass grew tenfold. The findings, reported in The Astronomer's Telegram on 29 October 2026, show a survey telescope doing cutting-edge transient science entirely as a byproduct of its main job: scanning the whole sky, over and over, without anyone asking it to look at this particular star. The result matters beyond a single explosion. Dust is the raw material of planets, and the grains forged in stellar explosions carry chemical fingerprints that survive for billions of years, turning up in meteorites on Earth. Watching a dust shell form, expand, and ...

BEIJING, China — A single injection of an experimental gene-silencing drug cut a key blood-pressure protein by up to 93% in healthy volunteers, according to results from a small first-in-human trial published in JAMA Cardiology and reported on 31 October 2026. The drug, called ART101, is designed to work for months from one shot — a striking contrast to the daily tablets most people with high blood pressure must take for life. The findings are early, and the researchers are careful about what they do and do not prove. The trial was built to test safety, not to show that the drug treats hypertension. But the size and durability of the protein drop, sustained over 24 weeks of follow-up, give researchers a dose range to carry into larger trials in patients — the next step that will decide whether the idea becomes a real treatment. Illustration: A clinician giving a single subcutaneous injection, the dosing approach tested in the ART101 Phase 1 trial. What Happened The Phase 1 st...

HELSINKI, Finland — A temperature once treated as almost unthinkable for the far north can no longer be dismissed in the Nordic countries, according to a new peer-reviewed study published on 31 October 2026. Researchers at the Finnish Meteorological Institute conclude that 40°C heat is no longer implausible in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and that the annual chance of such heat occurring somewhere in the region has risen sixfold since 1981. The study, published in the journal npj Natural Hazards , does not say that 40°C has already been recorded across the Nordics. Its warning is about a threshold that has not yet been seen there: on the evidence of thousands of years of simulated summers, the authors argue, planners should no longer treat it as out of reach. "Our findings suggest that the Nordic countries should prepare for substantially higher peak temperatures than indicated by the historical observational record alone," the paper states. Illustration: A Nordic city s...

TOKYO, Japan — Toyota will build Waymo's next robotaxi on its own factory floor, with a fleet of autonomous bZ4X electric SUVs set to begin testing in Japan in 2027 before deployment to the United Kingdom and other markets where Waymo operates, the two companies announced on 30 October 2026. The deal turns an 18-month-old exploratory partnership into a concrete manufacturing programme: Toyota will assemble the 2027 bZ4X at its Takaoka plant in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, and integrate Waymo's self-driving hardware on the same production line, rather than retrofitting finished cars after they leave the factory. The companies describe the project as a step toward Japan's first fully autonomous ride-hailing service using high-volume, domestically manufactured vehicles. Illustration: An autonomous electric SUV robotaxi with roof sensors on a Tokyo street, where Toyota and Waymo plan to begin testing in 2027. What Happened Under the next phase of their collaboration,...

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam cut its average retail electricity price by 2% and removed the special consumption tax on gasoline from 1 November 2026, launching a five-month energy-cost relief package aimed at easing pressure on households and businesses while the country chases an ambitious full-year growth target of more than 10%. The government announced the measures on Saturday, 31 October, saying they were intended to help maintain macroeconomic stability while supporting social welfare and business activity. The average retail electricity tariff falls to 2,159.9 dong (about $0.085) per kilowatt-hour, excluding value-added tax, while the special consumption tax on gasoline drops to zero from rates of 7% to 10% until the end of March next year, Reuters reported. Illustration: Electricity transmission towers over Hanoi rooftops as Vietnam cuts average retail power prices by 2%. What Happened State electricity provider Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) applied the 2% reduction to the ...