How does that saying go?
Better exceptionally late than never?
Right?
The US has said it will send aid to famine-hit areas of Somalia controlled by the Islamist group al-Shabab.
But US aid officials say assurances must be given that the insurgents will not interfere with its distribution.
The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls.
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.
Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access.
The deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Donald Steinberg, said the aid must not benefit al-Shabab.
“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, that they can operate unfettered,” Mr Steinberg told the BBC.
via BBC News – US ‘to aid Islamist areas of famine-hit Somalia’.
David Cameron has told MPs that “with hindsight” he would not have hired ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson.
In the closest he has come to an apology, the PM said: “Of course I regret, and I am extremely sorry, about the furore it has caused.”
Mr Coulson quit the NoW over phone hacking, saying he knew nothing about it but took ultimate responsibility.
Amid stormy Commons scenes Labour leader Ed Miliband said hiring him was a “catastrophic error of judgement”.
And the prime minister came under pressure from Labour MPs to confirm whether he had any conversations about News Corporation’s now aborted bid to fully takeover BSkyB with executives from the company such as Rebekah Brooks, Rupert or James Murdoch.
He had returned early from a trip to Africa to make an emergency statement on the phone hacking crisis – the Commons is sitting for an extra day after the prime minister delayed MPs’ summer recess so he could address the issue.
In other developments in the phone hacking saga:
Mr Cameron said the public inquiry will be widened to examine broadcasters and social media and named the panel
Speaker John Bercow launches an investigation into the foam pie incident at Rupert Murdoch’s committee hearing
The Met Police drafts in 15 extra officers to work on its investigation – taking total force numbers to 60 – citing a “significant increase” in its workload
Downing St and Buckingham Palace deny claims by Labour MP Chris Bryant that royal officials raised concerns about Mr Coulson’s appointment
The protester accused of throwing shaving foam at Mr Murdoch is charged with a public order offence.
News Corporation terminates arrangements to pay legal fees of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire “with immediate effect”
Labour MP Nick Raynsford says that, when Mr Coulson was at Downing St, 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.
Downing St confirms that the prime minister received and responded to a letter from Labour MP Tom Watson last October, in which he raised concerns about Mr Coulson
via BBC News – Phone hacking: Cameron’s ‘regret’ over hiring Coulson.
