Holliday

GoldingDejesus

The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls. Families have built their own homes at the camp with tree branches, wood and plastic sheets, he says. 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. But US aid officials say assurances must be given that the insurgents will not interfere with its distribution. 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".

MclanePartin

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 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. "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 al-Shabab, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said new funds to help the country were desperately needed. Some children look like skeletons while others have swollen legs and hands, he adds. 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.

WilhelmWick

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. 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". "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." Drought, conflict and poverty have now combined to produce the necessary conditions for famine.

FaustStillwell

In other developments in the phone-hacking saga: Earlier, the Met was accused by MPs of a "catalogue of failures" in the News of the World phone-hacking inquiry. 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. 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. Families have built their own homes at the camp with tree branches, wood and plastic sheets, he says. "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 al-Shabab, Save the Children's Sonia Zambakides told the BBC the situation in Somalia was shocking. "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. Those conditions include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished, and four children out of every 10,000 dying daily.

SowersSchmidt

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. The deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Donald Steinberg, said the aid must not benefit al-Shabab. 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. "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. Those conditions include more than 30% of children being acutely malnourished, and four children out of every 10,000 dying daily. 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. In Somalia's war-ravaged capital, Mogadishu, the BBC's Mohamed Mwalimu says more than 4,000 people are crammed into one camp, called Safety. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that Washington would provide an extra $28m in emergency aid to counter the famine.