Murillo

AndrusGlenn

"If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks," said the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden. BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says this marks a considerable change in policy from Washington. Families have built their own homes at the camp with tree branches, wood and plastic sheets, he says. Nearly half the Somali population - 3.7 million people - were in crisis, he said, with most of them in the south. 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.

CheathamLehmann

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia said the ongoing conflict in Somalia had made it extremely difficult for agencies to access communities in the south, which are controlled by al-Shabab. She said some of the mothers had walked up to six days with no food to try to find help. The protester accused of throwing shaving foam at Rupert Murdoch is charged with a public order offence BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says this marks a considerable change in policy from Washington. An estimated 10 million people have been affected in East Africa by the worst drought in more than half a century. More than 166,000 desperate Somalis are estimated to have fled their country to neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia. The UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, said the response by many European and developed countries to the crisis in the Horn of Africa had been "derisory and dangerously inadequate".

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The protester accused of throwing shaving foam at Rupert Murdoch is charged with a public order offence One woman he met arrived after a long trip, much of it on foot, carrying her one-and-a-half-year-old son on her back - only to realise, when she arrived, that he was dead. He said discussions with al-Shabab about the safe distribution of food aid were taking place at a local level, and that responses were expected to differ depending on the locality. Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine. "If we don't act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious disease outbreaks," said the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden.

DollarPulliam

Some children look like skeletons while others have swollen legs and hands, he adds. The UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, said the response by many European and developed countries to the crisis in the Horn of Africa had been "derisory and dangerously inadequate". News International's parent company News Corporation has also confirmed it has stopped paying the legal fees of former private detective Glenn Mulcaire, who was convicted of phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World in 2007. In April 2010 US President Barack Obama issued an executive order naming al-Shabab a terrorist organisation, meaning no US aid could go to areas under its control, our analyst adds.

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Save the Children's Sonia Zambakides told the BBC the situation in Somalia was shocking. Earlier, the Met was accused by MPs of a "catalogue of failures" in the News of the World phone-hacking inquiry. "I was talking to mothers with children, the children looked maybe nine months to one year old - the mothers were telling the children were three and four years old, so they are absolutely tiny." She said some of the mothers had walked up to six days with no food to try to find help. News International has said a May 2007 letter from the firm had made it believe that hacking was a "matter of the past" and confined to a single rogue reporter.