Bourque

NeedhamTierney

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. Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs that "with hindsight" he would not have hired ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief, in the closest he has come to an apology. 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. But US aid officials say assurances must be given that the insurgents will not interfere with its distribution. 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 concerns about Mr Coulson The deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Donald Steinberg, said the aid must not benefit al-Shabab. The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls.