MONTEVIDEO, Jan 05 (IPS) - Karina Núñez Rodríguez was only 12 when she was forced into prostitution. Now age 50 and a mother of six, she is an outspoken fighter against sexual exploitation of children and teenagers in Uruguay, a country reluctant to recognise this growing scourge.

COLOMBO, Jan 05 (IPS) - These days, the national greeting in Sri Lanka is a simple question: "So, what do you think?"

Everyone from van drivers waiting to pick kids up from school, to mechanics repairing vehicles, to barbers cutting your hair have only this question on their lips.

WHITE PLAINS, New York, Jan 05 (IPS) - On the day of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, one of his emissaries was secretly meeting with Fidel Castro at Varadero Beach in Cuba to discuss terms for ending the U.S. embargo against the island and beginning the process of détente between the two countries.

NEW YORK, Jan 04 (IPS) - A concerted disinformation campaign is being conducted to manufacture consent for military action against the government in Tripoli and the town of Misrata, which has been at the forefront of toppling the despotic Gaddafi dictatorship.

HARRAN and NIZIP, Turkey, Jan 04 (IPS) - "We ran as if we were ants fleeing out of the nest. I moved to three different cities in Syria to try to be away from the conflict, but there was no safe place left in my country so we decided to move out."

MITHI, Pakistan, Jan 03 (IPS) - The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan's southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 03 (IPS) - After adopting a new law banning trans fats in industrially processed foods, Argentina is starting out the new year with an improved public health outlook. The challenge now is for the food industry to incorporate the new rules, in an adaptation process that started four years ago.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 02 (IPS) - In a satirical piece titled 'An Unserious Look at the Year Ahead' in the Wall Street Journal last week, Hugo Rifkind predicts the price of a barrel of oil will fall so low that people across the world would start buying oil for the barrel - and throw the oil out.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 01 (IPS) - They number between two and three million; some have lived in makeshift shelters for just a few months, while others have roots that stretch much further back into history. Most fled to escape war, others simply ran away from joblessness.