Image source, Reuters

An ancient necropolis containing dozens of stone coffins and a necklace bearing a "message from the afterlife" has been discovered in Egypt.

The site near the city of Minya, south of Cairo, is more than 2,000 years old and is expected to take another five years to excavate.

Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Enany said it contained 40 sarcophagi, jewellery, pottery and a gold mask.

He said there were burial shafts dating from the late Pharaonic period to the early Ptolomaic era of around 300BC.

"This is only the beginning of a new discovery," he told reporters. "We are very soon going to add a new archaeological attraction to Middle Egypt."

Read the full story on the BBC website.

South African state prosecutors will announce in two weeks whether they will reinstate corruption charges against former President Jacob Zuma, eNCA television reports.

In 2005 Mr Zuma was charged with corruption over a multi-billion dollar arms deal. The charges were dropped shortly before he became president in 2009.

The charges of money-laundering and racketeering, stemming from the controversial 1999 $5bn (£3.5bn) arms deal, have refused to go away.

The fate of a group of missing Nigerian schoolgirls who disappeared from their boarding school in Dapchi last week is still unclear.

Their disappearance followed an attack by suspected Boko Haram militants which closely mirrors the 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok.

That event provoked anger, outrage and the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.

Bukky Shonibare from the Bring Our Girls campaign says the government has not learnt from Chibok incident:

Nigeria's government has gathered experts in the capital Abuja to work out how to stop Lake Chad from drying up, reports AFP news agency.

Lake Chad was once one of the largest lakes in the world, but as much as 90% of it has disappeared in the past 50 years.

That's important because it is the principal source of freshwater for 40 million people.

The lake is disappearing partly because, when rainfall decreased the lake changed from an inland sea into separate ponds.

This is in turn made fishing less lucrative. So people turned to farming and used the water for irrigation, leading to even less water reaching the lake.

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At least 37 people were killed between September and November last year during the second phase of Kenya's election, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

It accuses police and armed gangs of being behind the killings.

HRW researcher Otsieno Namwaya urged Kenyan authorities to acknowledge the full scale of election-related violence, and to investigate "each and every killing."

The report also criticised President Uhuru Kenyatta saying that he has failed to acknowledge the killings nor called for them to be investigated, while " lavishing giving unqualified praise on the police."

HRW and Amnesty International found in a joint report in October that at least 67 people were killed countrywide during the first round of election in August, most of them either shot or beaten to death by police, Daily Nation reports. , external

Police clashed with opposition supporters as they held demonstrations pushing for changes in the electoral system before the 26 October repeat election.

HRW says that police confronted protesters with teargas and live bullets, but in some cases police shot at passersby going about their daily routine.

The rights body says that more than 100 people were killed since the first election in August.

Two lions rescued from neglected zoos in war-torn Syria and Iraq have landed in Johannesburg, South Africa and are waiting to be taken to their new home.

The animal welfare group Four Paws tweeted a picture of the two before they flew:

Last year Four Paws rescued the lions from neglected zoos in Mosul and near Aleppo.

Most of the 40 animals in Mosul zoo died of starvation or were killed by bomb attacks while 12 other animals were rescued from the neglected zoo in Aleppo.

The two lions, names Simba and Saeed, were rehabilitated in Jordan before their flight to South Africa.

They are expected to be introduced to their new home, a 1,250 hectares big cat sanctuary called Lions Rock, at 1600 local time.

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A Tanzanian opposition MP has been handed a five-month prison sentence after being found guilty of defaming President John Magufuli, The Citizen news site reports.

Joseph Mbilinyi - popularly known as Sugu - from the opposition Chadema party, was convicted by a magistrate's court in the southwestern town of Mbeya.

His co-accused, Emmanuel Masonga, was handed a similar prison sentence.

The two were accused of committing "hate speech" against President Magufuli at Mwenge Primary School in Mbeya on 30 December last year.

Mbilinyi earlier urged his supporters to remain calm and accept any form of court judgment.

Observers say the ruling will deepen concerns that Mr Magufuli's intolerance of dissent is eroding Tanzanian democracy.

The High Court in Kenya has ordered the government to facilitate the return of opposition politician Miguna Miguna who was deported to Canada, local news site The Nation reports:

The Kenyan-born politician was deported to Canada, where he also holds citizenship, after being held for days by the police.

Kenyan authorities say that under the old constitution, Kenyans couldn't hold dual-citizenship meaning that Mr Miguna's acquisition of a Canadian passport in 1988 cost him his Kenyan nationality.

Under Article 17 of the Kenyan Constitution, external, a person born in Kenya can only have their citizenship revoked if it was acquired by fraud, if they or their parents were already a citizen of another country, or if the person was older than eight when they were found in Kenya.

Before he was deported on 7 February, the government had refused to obey several court orders demanding the authorities arraign Miguna Miguna in court.

Mr Miguna had been arrested for his role in the mock swearing-in ceremony of opposition leader Raila Odinga as the "people's president".

Mr Odinga claims that he beat President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 8 August election which was annulled by the Supreme Court because of "irregularities and illegalities".

He boycotted the repeat election which Mr Kenyatta won.

The father of a 14-year-old girl who is among 110 believed to be abducted by Boko Haram has pleaded with the Nigerian government to act quickly.

Kachalla Bukar was speaking to Newsday this morning.

His daughter Aisha was in a group of girls who went missing after jihadists stormed their school in the town of Dapchi in the north-eastern Yobe state on 19 February.

Mr Bukar says his wife cannot stop crying and he cannot sleep:

Read more on the BBC News website.

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