Peacock flies the coop, returns -- and tweets!

This peacock went rogue on Tuesday, Aug. 2, taking its perch on a window sill in Manhattan. The Central Park Zoo said in a statement to local media this morning that it would retrieve the male bird if it did not fly home on its own and that the peacock is not a threat to anyone. The peacock is the third animal is a few months to have escaped from the zoo. A peahen and a cobra were returned without incident. 

At 6:45 a.m. the peacock took flight and is now, apparently, tweeting from somewhere in Central Park (digitally, not just in the birdly sense). The peacock has more than 1,700 followers on its @CentralPeacock Twitter feed. Check out the video below to see the peacock take flight and hear the TODAY anchors' get punny about their new feathered friend.

Frank Franklin II/ AP

A peacock on the loose after it escaped from the Central Park Zoo stands on a window ledge above Fifth Avenue Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011 in New York.

A male peacock wandered away from the Manhattan zoo and made its way to an apartment building on Fifth Avenue, where he perched on a window sill. The incident spurred a flurry of tweets.

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U.N. flies food into famine-hit Somali capital

MOGADISHU — 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.

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Some 3.7 million Somalis — almost half of the population — are going hungry with drought hitting some 11.6 million people across what local media have dubbed a "triangle of death" straddling Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Though the U.N. food agency had already distributed food in the capital, this is its first airlift of food into Somalia since the food crisis began.

"We need to scale up our programs, and especially the nutrition programs, in order to avoid children falling into severe malnutrition," Stephanie Savariaud, a U.N. World Food Program (WFP) spokeswoman, told Reuters.

"Then they need to get hospitalized and it's much more difficult to save them."

The U.N. plane carried 10 tons of so-called therapeutic food — the type used to feed malnourished children under five. The shipment will feed 3,500 children for a month, WFP said.

The agency said it has an additional 70 tons ready in Kenya, which it will fly to Somalia over the coming days.

Aid agencies say they cannot reach more than 2 million Somalis facing starvation in the parts of the country where Islamist militants control much of the worst-hit areas.

WFP officials have said they will try to deliver food to the areas controlled by the al-Qaida-linked al Shabaab rebels over the next week and that they will consider food drops from aircraft as a last resort.

There are about 400,000 displaced people in the capital Mogadishu, with about 1,000 new arrivals each day, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday. It estimated that 100,000 internally displaced people have arrived in the city over the last two months.

People in makeshift settlements are fighting over food being distributed by local charities, with the weaker ones unable to push through the crowds to get it, UNHCR said.

"Even if people are able to obtain the food and water being distributed, they often lack even the most basic containers to carry it. Often, they must haul food and water in plastic bags," UNHCR said.

The WFP has set up 16 feeding centers across the capital, providing hot meals to new arrivals using supplies delivered by sea from Kenya and Tanzania.

Boats are continuing to shift food in but they can take months to arrive. They are escorted by the European Naval Force to Somalia to deter pirate attacks.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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U.N. flies food into famine-hit Somali capital (Reuters)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – 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.

Some 3.7 million Somalis -- almost half of the population -- are going hungry with drought hitting some 11.6 million people across what local media have dubbed a "triangle of death" straddling Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Though the U.N. food agency had already distributed food in the capital, this is its first airlift of food into Somalia since the food crisis began.

"We need to scale up our programs, and especially the nutrition programs, in order to avoid children falling into severe malnutrition," Stephanie Savariaud, a U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman, told Reuters.

"Then they need to get hospitalized and it's much more difficult to save them."

The U.N. plane carried 10 tonnes of so-called therapeutic food -- the type used to feed malnourished children under five. The shipment will feed 3,500 children for a month, WFP said.

The agency said it has an additional 70 tonnes ready in Kenya, which it will fly to Somalia over the coming days.

Aid agencies say they cannot reach more than two million Somalis facing starvation in the parts of the country where Islamist militants control much of the worst-hit areas.

WFP officials have said they will try to deliver food to the areas controlled by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels over the next week and that they will consider food drops from aircrafts as a last resort.

There are about 400,000 displaced people in the capital Mogadishu, with about 1,000 new arrivals each day, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday. It estimated that 100,000 internally displaced people have arrived in the city over the last two months.

People in makeshift settlements are fighting over food being distributed by local charities, with the weaker ones unable to push through the crowds to get it, UNHCR said.

"Even if people are able to obtain the food and water being distributed, they often lack even the most basic containers to carry it. Often, they must haul food and water in plastic bags," UNHCR said.

The WFP has set up 16 feeding centers across the capital, providing hot meals to new arrivals using supplies delivered by sea from Kenya and Tanzania.

Boats are continuing to shift food in but they can take months to arrive. They are escorted by the European Naval Force to Somalia to deter pirate attacks.

(Additional reporting and writing by Katy Migiro in Nairobi; Editing by Barry Malone and Elizabeth Fullerton)

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