Pollock

PuckettTrent

Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine. The law firm had said it was being prevented from responding to "inaccurate" comments made by News International chairman James Murdoch because the company would not allow it breach its duty of client confidentiality. Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access. He said the goal was to save lives, "not to play a game of 'gotcha' with a UN agency or any other group that is brave enough to go in and provide that assistance". Those conditions include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished, and four children out of every 10,000 dying daily.