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". In other developments in the phone-hacking saga: "I was talking to mothers with children, the children looked maybe nine months to one…

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. The UN has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as…

Meanwhile, News of the World owner News International said it had authorised law firm Harbottle & Lewis to answer any questions from Scotland Yard and the Commons home affairs committee about its work for the company. The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it…

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. In other developments in the phone-hacking saga: Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on…

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. During Wednesday's House of Commons debate on the phone-hacking scandal, MPs called on…

"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." Families have built their own homes at the camp with tree branches, wood and plastic sheets, he says. News International's…

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. An estimated 10 million people have been affected in East Africa by the…

She said the US had already provided $431m this year in emergency aid to the Horn of Africa, but that was "not enough". The BBC's Africa correspondent Andrew Harding says the emotive word "famine" is used rarely and carefully by humanitarian organisations, and it is the first time since 1992 that the word has been…

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said new funds to help the country were desperately needed. 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%…

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. In other developments in the phone-hacking saga: Downing Street confirms that the prime minister received and responded to a letter from…