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Ancient tools, buried for millions of years in Kenya, may be the oldest example yet of our ancestors' technological prowess. The tools, recently discovered on the Homa Peninsula in Lake Victoria, are now the earliest known examples of Oldowan technology — stretching its known start date back by as many as 400,000 years.

Hundreds of people are feared missing after a ferry capsized on Lake Victoria in north Tanzania. A local official told the BBC five people have died and 102 have been rescued, but another said that the vessel was overloaded with more than 400 people on board. The MV Nyerere ferry overturned near the shore between the islands of Ukora and Bugolora. Locals have joined with emergency teams in rescue efforts. The Tanzanian government has confirmed the ferry capsized but exact figures for those on board are yet to be confirmed. "We pray to God to give us hope in...

Once green, the Sahara expanded 5,500 years ago, leading ancient herders to follow the rain and grasslands south to eastern Africa. But about 2,000 years ago, their southward migration stalled out, stopped in its tracks, archaeologists presumed, by tsetse-infested bush and disease. As the theory goes, the tiny tsetse fly altered the course of history, stopping the spread of domesticated animal herding with a bite that carries sleeping sickness and nagana, diseases often fatal for the herder and the herded. Now, isotopic research on animal remains from a nearly 2,000-year-old settlement near Gogo Falls in the present-day bushy woodlands of...

African Ice Core Analysis Reveals Catastrophic Droughts, Shrinking Ice Fields, Civilization Shifts COLUMBUS, Ohio – A detailed analysis of six cores retrieved from the rapidly shrinking ice fields atop Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro shows that those tropical glaciers began to form about 11,700 years ago. The cores also yielded remarkable evidence of three catastrophic droughts that plagued the tropics 8,300, 5,200 and 4,000 years ago. Lastly, the analysis also supports Ohio State University researchers' prediction that these unique bodies of ice will disappear in the next two decades, the victims of global warming. These findings were published today in the journal...

[The obese former despot wants to return from his exile in ******** Saudi Arabia ******** to see out his final years in Uganda. Kivumbi Amule, Amin's younger brother, said the former dictator had told him of his plans during a telephone conversation from Jeddah. "He said he wants to return to his country and stay with his people," Mr Amule said. "His plans have reinvigorated him. His former voice came through so clearly, it was as if he were president again."] Idi Amin's island of slaughter for sale (Filed: 02/06/2002)  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/06/02/wamin02.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/06/02/ixworld.html The holiday retreat where the Ugandan despot tortured and...