SOMALIA

The following are excerpts of eyewitness accounts to the suffering in Somalia, as recorded by HRW researchers:

Beset by famine, civil war and terrorist militant groups, Somalia is enduring the worst crisis in Africa in at least 20 years.

The U.S. will donate an additional $17 million to nations in the Horn of Africa coping with severe drought, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced.

The Islamic insurgents have left the city, releasing their four-year grip on the Somali capital. But is the government effective enough to keep al-Shabaab out for good?

The U.N.'s food agency said it has been able to reach more parts of famine-struck Somalia in the last month but there were still significant security challenges in Mogadishu even though Islamist rebels have left the capital.

As warfare becomes increasingly defined by targeted counter-terrorism operations rather than battles against conventional armies, Special Ops troops have grown in number and importance.

Soldiers fired upon looters and refugees in Mogadishu.

With the famine spreading further in and around Somalia, the Aid groups are appealing for more funding to cope with the crisis.

Britain and the United States poke fun at incompetent, arrogant middle managers in the television comedy "The Office," but in Afghanistan the target is a fictional minister of garbage in a new series called "The Ministry."

"Nobody wants a woman who passes stools all the time and smells," whispered Farhiya Mohamed Farah, explaining why her husband divorced her when she was pregnant with their second child.

As the focus of modern warfare shifts from conventional military campaigns to clandestine, targeted strikes, the U.S. military has increasingly come to rely on covert operatives employed by U.S. Special Operations Command, according to a new report.

A total of five areas in Somalia suffering from famine, including the capital city.

The fate of tens of thousands of people living and dying from famine in the Somalia is literally in the hands and hearts of the internationally community. The deadly famine in Somalia could spread if the international community doesn't provide the funds needed to respond to the hunger crisis that has already killed thousands, the United Nations humanitarian chief warned.

The U.N. says that more than $2 billion more in aid is required to help the starving in Somalia.

Kenya's monetary policy committee decided to leave its key lending rate unchanged because non-food and fuel inflation were within its target band, its chairman, who is also the governor of the central bank, said on Monday.

Muslims in Norway number about 200,000, only about 4 percent of the country?s population. They come from across the Arab world, as well as Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Kenya and Somalia.

Predictions about al-Qaeda's imminent collapse threaten to lull the U.S. into a false sense of complacency about the continued threat the terror network represents, a recently retired top counter-terrorism aide said.

Insurgents from al-Shabab, an Islamist terrorist group in league with al-Qaeda, have banned food and aid assistance from the UN.

The United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday as aid groups warned of a growing influx of hungry families from the famine-hit south of the country.

The European Union's executive will increase funding for victims of the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, the EU's crisis chief said on Wednesday after visiting Kenya and Somalia.

Osama bin Laden's death and a relentless campaign of drone attacks have weakened al-Qaeda to the point that the terror organization may no longer be capable of planning and carrying out large-scale attacks.