Aside from its well-documented mythology, another thing mysterious and appealing about ancient Egypt is its gold. Just recently, archaeologists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute have unearthed an ancient gold-processing and panning camp along the Nile River, revealing where the once-mighty kingdom obtained its resources.

The said camp is located about 800 miles south of Cairo, somewhere in the north region of Sudan. Archaeologists believe that this camp was utilized by Kushites who formerly ruled Sudan. Expedition co-leader Geoff Emberling explained,

Based on what we've found, the kingdom of Kush was significantly larger and more powerful than anyone thought. The process probably went like this: "We send you the trinkets, you send us the bags of gold and we give you more status". The kingdom of Kush and the Egyptians were close trading buddies.

Emberling added that the camp site simply looks like a field of rocks to the untrained eye. However, he shared that their team was able to locate a total of 55 two-foot grindstones used to crush gold ore. Water from the Nile may have been used to sift out the bounty.

However, the team of Emberling doesn't have enough time left to figure out the whole story behind the camp due to time restraints. A dam is currently being built upstream of the excavation site and around 2,500 untouched sites will be affected by it once finished. Emberling is saddened that a big slice of history will be lost despite the work they are doing.

Reuters reports that international wildlife experts have come upon a treeless island that is home to hundreds of wild elephants in the swamps of south Sudan. "We flew out of a cloud, and there they were. "It was like something out of Jurassic Park," said Tom Catterson, who works on a U.S.-funded environment program in south Sudan.

The elephants have apparently managed to avoid unchecked hunting during more than 20 years of Sudan's north-south civil war. "It's not that good a habitat for elephants, but they're free of people shooting at them," said Catterson. "You and I wouldn't stand a chance in there between the mosquitoes and crocodiles. And you'd get lost."

The extent of damage the war has caused to Sudan's animal population is only now being discovered. To help protect the elephants from poachers, environmentalists have chosen to keep the location of the island secret. Environmentalists are also hoping to find other elephant herds or other groups of animals in areas unreachable by poachers and other animal hunters.

We often associate Africa with devastating droughts but not this year. The monsoon rains is so heavy Lake Turkana in Kenya is losing its capacity to take in more water. Since August, almost 1,000 people have been killed in flash floods while 120,000 have been evacuated in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan.

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported, "Thousands of people are in need of urgent humanitarian relief as entire communities have been displaced, disrupted, bereaved, and have lost vital livestock and farmland."

And things will get worse before they get better according to humanitarian aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres.

If rivers overflow, dams and levees in Ethiopia could give way in the coming weeks. Flood waters have already reached threatening levels in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan and has affected 30,000 people in Niger and 20,000 in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

Outbreaks of malaria and water-borne diseases like cholera are also expected.

The countries most affected by the extreme rainfall are located in what is often called the Horn of Africa. It is also known as the Somali Peninsula and extends for hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea. Covering the countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, the area is inhabited by about 86.5 million people.