UNITED NATIONS, Nov 06 (IPS) - Imagine an orphanage where over 300 children born out of rape have been abandoned because of the shame and stigma associated with sexual violence. Imagine a town where, in the last year, 11 infants between the ages of 6 months and 1 year, and 59 small children from 1 to 3 years old, have been raped.

MONTEVIDEO, Nov 06 (IPS) - The small South American country of Uruguay could become a major logistics hub in the Southern Cone due to the deepwater port that the government is planning to build in a tourist area on the Atlantic ocean.

NEW YORK, Nov 06 (IPS) - When Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of this city only weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, few imagined that by the time he left office a new building would have risen in the shadow of the Twin Towers.

HAVANA, Nov 06 (IPS) - For the Cuban economy, the year 2014 is set to start with the opening of the first installations in the Special Economic Development Zone in the upgraded Mariel port, 70 km west of Havana.

NAIROBI, Nov 06 (IPS) - "That is the sound I love the most in the whole world," Hussein Ahmed says as the bells tied to his cattle begin clink as they return home. Ahmed, a pastoralist in Marsabit district in arid and semi-arid northern Kenya, lost all his animals in 2011 during one of the worst droughts in the region for over 60 years.

HONIARA, Nov 06 (IPS) - External interference in the awarding of tertiary scholarships in Pacific Island nations such as the Solomon Islands is denying some of the highest achievers among the young an opportunity to contribute to the future of their country and the region.

KARACHI, Nov 06 (IPS) - Rahmatullah Balal has spent ten years counting the schools that aren't. The particular kind of Pakistani schools that are called "ghost" schools.

ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan, Nov 06 (IPS) - Amani has just turned 22. Two months ago she fled from the civil war in Syria and left her house in capital Damascus. After a dangerous nightlong trip she arrived at Zaatari, the refugee camp just over the border in Jordan, where her parents and two sisters had already lived for over a year.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 05 (IPS) - Amidst a rise in sexual violence in the world's war zones, the United Nations has begun appointing women to head some of the key political and peacekeeping missions in conflict areas - and also created Gender Advisers as a second line of defence.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 05 (IPS) - Parts of Indonesia, Argentina and Nigeria are among the top 10 most polluted places on the planet, according to a new report by U.S. and European environmental groups.