Written By Jacob Powell (Film Critic) Reprinted with permission from Filmguide. For more reviews from the NZ Film Festival or more reviews by Jacob Powell, visit Filmguide. Chances are you’ve seen some of the shocking photographs of torture, humiliation and death that emerged into the wild from the goings on of the American military prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq; or at least you’ve heard of these pictures via the media aftermath that followed their release. [...]

Fiji along with 9 other countries has been selected for a United Nations pilot project on Violence Against Women. Participants from government, civil society, including faith based organizations, the UN and AusAid are at a three day workshop, which is in the final day today, to deliberate on a report on Fiji with regard to this issue; and the way forward. By 2010, the UN intends to have established joint programming on violence against women [...]

Allow us to introduce you to two great games. Most sites aimed at helping people to understand different humanitarian problems are very heavily geared towards readers (including this one). They present information that needs to be read. Not all people learn in this way though. For that reason, there are various online games you can now play to understand such situations better. Jonathan Read from Filmguide alerted The Humanitarian Chronicle to one geared at helping [...]

Often in war times, woman, children and the elderly are abused and mistreated. Seen as the weakest in society, they make easy targets and the crimes committed against them amount to crimes against humanity. Sexual violence against females, both young and old, is a dark and often unspoken method used in many current war situations. Darfur has helped to highlight this situation, being the biggest case of rape being used as a systematic weapon of [...]

A recent leaked report from the World Bank shows that the reason for the sharp increase in global food prices that has lead to an escalating world food crisis is biofuels and the redirection of needed wheat and maize stocks from the European Union and the U.S towards the production of such fuels. One thing not being addressed is the clear centrality the EU and US have in supplying such an essential food group to [...]

This is a challenge to faith groups, to act in the Darfur crisis.

This just received from Brooks Addicott at the Sundance Institute: Global Stories Resonate With International Talent Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program announced 16 film projects to receive financial and creative support from the Sundance Documentary Fund. Out of 325 applications working in more than 52 countries, the 16 feature-length documentary films selected will receive a total of $512,500 in support for emerging and established filmmakers. The Sundance Documentary Film Program supports U.S. and international documentary [...]