Mwanvua Silimu has just told a lie and everyone in the room knows it. She stares at her feet, silent. The 14-year-old is back home after months as the prisoner of vagabond soldiers, relating her ordeal. It is the obvious question, and her family ask it: how many of her 13 kidnappers raped her? In little more than a whisper, Mwanvua replies ”one”.

Iraqis defied violence and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in Iraq’s first free election in half a century on Sunday. Insurgents seeking to wreck the vote struck polling stations with a string of suicide bombings and mortar volleys, killing at least 44 people, including nine attackers.

Wayne Rooney scored two spectacular goals as holders Manchester United reached the fifth round of the FA Cup on a day when the giants of the Premiership hammered home their authority in the world’s oldest cup competition. Rooney made it four goals in five games to seal an emphatic 3-0 victory for United over Middlesbrough at Old Trafford.

The Vatican again on Saturday strongly condemned same-sex marriages as well as states which have legalised the practice, during an audience between Pope John Paul II and members of the Holy See’s top appeals court. ”Homosexual unions and co-habitation cannot be considered as marriages,” said Cardinal Antoni Stankiewicz.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is going to be a busy man this year as far as Africa is concerned. Reports indicate that the court could begin trying those accused of perpetrating atrocities in the conflict between Uganda’s government and rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army this year.