Somalia Seaton, a final-year BA Contemporary Theatre student at East 15, has won Epping Forest District Council's Leisure Bursary Award, worth £750. She is the first East 15 student to win this award and was nominated by her course tutor Uri Roodner, who is also a director and a performer working in theatre, dance, film and TV.

Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN refugee agency. UNHCR's Somalia representative says if nothing changes, the country will spiral further into lawlessness and rule by warlords. He spoke with VOA's Mandy Clark in London. Here is her report.

Somalia’s newly confirmed cabinet ministers are beginning their third day of work Wednesday in the violent-plagued capital of Mogadishu after arriving over the weekend, marking the official relocation of the new government from Baidoa to the national capital. Abdirazak Ashkii is Somalia’s minister for reconciliation. He old VOA that Mogadishu is relatively safe despite reports of frequent mortar attacks from Islamic insurgents.

The United Nations Security Council says there should be contingency planning for the possible deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia, despite the U.N. secretary general's warning that such a force would not be viable.

Ethiopian and Government forces in Somalia's capital Mogadishu are trying to seal off the centre of the city as they search for insurgents. Military roadblocks have been set up around Mogadishu as soldiers carry out door-to-door searches.

50 people killed and 100 others wounded in heavy fighting between rebels and Ethiopian troops backing Somalia's shaky government.

The international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of patients with the parasitic disease visceral leishmaniasis (“kala azar”) admitted to its treatment center in Somalia. The disease is transmitted by sand flies and causes fever, weight loss, anemia, and enlargement of the liver and spleen.

The United Nations says it has stopped distributing food in the Somali capital Mogadishu after its compound was stormed by government troops, who arrested the local head of the World Food Program.

As Somalia’s prime minister was fighting for his job Wednesday ahead of a no-confidence vote scheduled for later this week, at least eight were killed in fresh violence.

The U.N. refugee agency says it has begun distributing much-needed relief supplies for some 24,000 people in the Somali town of Afgooye, 30 kilometers west of the capital Mogadishu. The UNHCR reports families are still fleeing Mogadishu every day due to an increase in violence.

Somali leaders have signed a reconciliation agreement negotiated during the government's recent national peace conference.

Somali Islamists and opposition leaders continue their meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara. The gathering comes shortly after the end of a six-week reconciliation conference in Mogadishu sponsored by the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Many opposition members refused to attend.