BBC has been airing "No Country for Young Girls" this week, a UN-funded documentary on India's preference for sons. Via UN News Center:

"No country for young girls" explores issues such as illegal sex determination and consequent elimination, and its consequences for vast Asian nation in the years to come. It portrays a young Indian woman who has to choose between staying with a husband who does not want girl children, or to make it on her own.

According to a series of studies commissioned by UNFPA last year, prenatal son selection in several Asian countries - including India, China and Viet Nam - is likely to have severe social consequences in coming years. The agency has been working to address the issue for many years.

This comes a few months after the Indian prime minister denounced the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses as a "national shame." Check out the BBC World News website to find out when the film is airing in your area.

by Adele Waugaman

It is important to remember that the Russian incursion into Georgia on August 8 has created not only a complex political situation but a humanitarian emergency that requires immediate attention. Aerial bombings and street fighting injured many and displaced waves of up to 100,000 civilians, according to estimates by the UN refugee agency. And, as we attempt to put the pieces back together, both the political negotiations and the humanitarian efforts will need world attention and support.

In recent days, both the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the non-profit group Télécoms Sans Frontiéres (TSF) have mobilized their emergency telecommunications services in support of the humanitarian relief efforts underway.

WFP, the UN's food relief agency, also is a leading provider of ICT services. On August 13 WFP teams in Georgia were sent a shipment of radios, satellite phones, and supplies to bolster communications networks damaged during the conflict and enable radio contact between humanitarian aid workers in the area.

On that same day, a team of four TSF emergency technicians arrived in Tbilisi to assess the communications needs of the humanitarian relief workers and affected civilians. TSF will support UN agencies on the ground such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), UNHCR (the UN refugee agency), WFP and UNICEF (the UN children's agency). Depending on needs on the ground, TSF may launch a "humanitarian calling operation" to enable victims of the conflict to give news to family members, or request personalized assistance.

Both TSF and WFP deployments are supported by funds from the UN Foundation and Vodafone Group Foundation Technology Partnership, which works toward harnessing the power of mobile technologies to support UN humanitarian work worldwide. We'll keep you posted as we learn more about how emergency communications help the aid workers and population affected by the conflict.

At a ceremony honoring the 22 people who died in the horrific bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad five years, the head of the UN mission in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, pledged that the UN would continue to step up its work in the country.

"What we are doing at the moment is sending a signal that the U.N. is back. The U.N. is back to stay. The U.N. is back to have its footprint increasing, its activities increasing."

U.N. officials say there are about 350 international civilian and military staff members across the country, and that the number of civilian foreign staff members increased by 30 percent over the last year.

As the situation in Iraq shifts, so too is the direction of the UN's support.

[Officials] say their focus has shifted from bricks-and-mortar projects, such as building schools, to training and advising Iraqi ministries and officials.

With violence at four-year lows across Iraq, the United Nations is also venturing further into the tempestuous world of Iraqi politics.

The only way to consolidate the possible benefits of this decreased violence, of course, is through ramped up efforts at political reconciliation. Upcoming provincial elections -- likely to be delayed from October until early next year because of, among other factors, the difficulty of negotiating a referendum over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk -- are crucial to Iraq's political progress, and, as others have noted, the UN is in the best position to take the lead in this endeavor.