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. 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…

She said the US had already provided $431m this year in emergency aid to the Horn of Africa, but that was "not enough". She said there had been a "surge of inquiries and requests for assistance from the public and solicitors". Meanwhile, News of the World owner News International said it had authorised law firm…

Nearly half the Somali population - 3.7 million people - were in crisis, he said, with most of them in the south. 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…

Save the Children's Sonia Zambakides told the BBC the situation in Somalia was shocking. 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. Those conditions include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished,…

"What we need is assurances from the World Food Programme and from other agencies, the United Nations or other agencies, both public and in the non-governmental sector, who are willing to go into Somalia who will tell us affirmatively that they are not being taxed by al-Shabab, they are not being subjected to bribes from…

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". Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine. One woman he met arrived after a long…

She said some of the mothers had walked up to six days with no food to try to find help. 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 applied to a…

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. Downing Street confirms that the prime minister received and responded to a letter from Labour MP Tom Watson last October, in which he had raised…

Save the Children's Sonia Zambakides told the BBC the situation in Somalia was shocking. 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. She said the…