Morton

KerrEarly

The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls. 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. BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says this marks a considerable change in policy from Washington. Save the Children's Sonia Zambakides told the BBC the situation in Somalia was shocking. "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, 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". 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.