"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…

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 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…

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…

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…

Mr Cameron said the public inquiry would be widened to examine broadcasters and social media and named the panel The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls. Downing Street and Buckingham Palace denied claims by Labour MP Chris Bryant that royal officials raised…

The UN has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as the region experiences the worst drought in more than half a century. Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine. that they can operate unfettered," Mr Steinberg told the BBC. He said discussions with al-Shabab about…

Labour MP Nick Raynsford said that, when Mr Coulson was at Downing Street, the cabinet secretary was alerted to evidence of illegal phone hacking, covert surveillance and hostile media briefing against a senior government official - the cabinet secretary later denied it. Mr Cameron said the public inquiry would be widened to examine broadcasters and…

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. She said the US had already provided $431m this year in emergency aid to the Horn of Africa, but that was "not enough".…

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said new funds to help the country were desperately needed. The UN said the humanitarian situation in Somalia's southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle districts had deteriorated rapidly and declared them to be suffering a famine. "The overall requirement is $1.6bn (�990m) for Somalia, roughly $300m is needed in the next…