Some interesting news pulled from today’s blogs and internet sources…

Reuters AlertNet: Will child soldier recruitment ever become taboo?

A year and a half ago I met a young Tamil Tiger fighter on the front line near the northeastern port of Trincomalee. He was 24 but had joined the rebels almost a decade earlier. Shocked, I asked him if he felt he had been robbed of his childhood.

He thought for a minute before saying no. He said his only alternative had been a life in one of the fairly wretched refugee camps and that on balance he felt he had had more control over his life as a fighter.

He had obviously done pretty well. Smartly dressed in civilian clothes, he had one of the key sections of the front protecting a rebel enclave that gave the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the ability to strike at shipping leaving Trincomalee naval base.

Some eight months later, as I watched a government artillery and multi-barrel rocket fire slam into the very same area of the front line weeks before it fell, I wondered whether he still felt it was the right decision.

Daily Monitor: Kony is More Proof, Political Violence Pays in This Country

And yet even if Kony were to be bought with money or political posts, or even killed tomorrow, another war would ultimately break out elsewhere as long as the present political contradictions stay in place. According to the former British High Commissioner Mr Adam Wood, “There is a risk if you don’t allow change. There might be change through violence. I am conscious of what lies in the past.” (“British Envoy Advises Parties”, New Vision, January 16, 2003).

Daily Monitor: Genocide Suspects Hiding in Uganda, Says Govt

“We have a lot of genocide suspects who fled justice in Rwanda and are hiding here in Uganda. We want action to be taken on the Uganda government side to make sure these people are brought to justice,” Mr Rugira told Daily Monitor on the sidelines of a one-day meeting of the Rwanda-Uganda Joint Permanent Commission in Kampala.

BBC News: Uganda confirms Marburg outbreak

Two miners have been diagnosed with the fast-spreading Ebola-like haemorrhagic fever, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

One of them has died and about 40 other people working at Kitaka gold mine have been quarantined, officials say.

Marburg has a high fatality rate. The last reported outbreak was in Angola in 2005 when some 300 people died.

Christian Science Monitor: ‘Ladies’ Detective’ film brings Tinsel Town to tiny Botswana

Until Hollywood came to town, work was scarce for Botswana film producer Portia Molebedi Sorinyane. Her home country of dust and diamonds was her inspiration; but if she wanted a job, she had to cross the border into South Africa.

“There is no film industry here, so if you want to eat you need to move somewhere else,” she says from behind a pair of trendy, oversized sunglasses.

But that, she hopes, is changing. This month, filming started on the first international movie ever to be shot in Botswana – The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a movie based on Alexander McCall Smith’s hit book series of the same name.

This means that Ms. Sorinyane has a gig as an assistant producer. It also means that her country of 1.7 million, whose economy is almost entirely dependent on diamond mining, may be the latest nation to cash in on Tinseltown’s Africa fad and launch a lucrative new industry.

In many ways, it is fitting that the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency should be the launch of a film industry here. Mr. McCall Smith’s series is set in Botswana, and focuses on the character Precious Ramotswe, a plucky, “traditionally-built” detective who solves fraud and misdeeds in Gabarone, the capital city.