NEW YORK, October 20 (IPS) - Climate and environmental challenges are hitting harder and more often, reshaping people’s lives around the world. While disasters touch everyone, their impacts are not felt equally. The most marginalized, especially women and girls, are too often the first to suffer and the last to recover.

BRATISLAVA, October 20 (IPS) - When Tsholofelo Msimango joined a small trial of a new drug regimen for tuberculosis (TB) treatment a decade ago, she had no idea whether the medicines she was about to be given would help her.

The UN on Monday said it was encouraged by renewed Gaza ceasefire commitments, warning that recent violence risked undermining fragile progress, as recovery efforts – including a large-scale rubble removal project – slowly gain momentum across the war-ravaged enclave.

To Sudan, where the people of government held El Fasher in the west of the war-torn country remain trapped without food, water or medical care, UN aid coordinators, OCHA, said on Monday.

Millions of people worldwide have been positively impacted by the work of the United Nations and some of their stories are being highlighted at an exhibition at the global organization’s New York headquarters.

Around 676 million women lived within 50 kilometres of deadly conflict last year – the highest figure since the 1990s.

Fifteen UN international staff are now free to move within the UN compound in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a following an “incursion” by Houthi forces on Saturday, 18 October, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric confirmed on Monday.

Holding the line on the existing rules-based international trading system remains an essential challenge if the world is the keep a damaging tariff war at bay, a top UN trade official said on Monday.

Nearly 70,000 women in Afghanistan tune in to Radio Femme – an all-female-run online and traditionally broadcast radio station which brings education and awareness of rights to women and girls across the province.

SAN ANTONIO, Chile, October 17 (IPS) - Maritime transport is key for Chile, which has 34 free trade agreements with countries and blocs of nations, one of the broadest trade networks in the world with access to over 86% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).