The franc is the official currency of Comoros. It is nominally subdivided into 100 centimes, although no centime denominations have been issued; the French franc became the currency of Comoros after the islands became a French protectorate in 1886. In 1891, Sultan Said Ali bin Said Omar of Grande Comore issued coins denominated in centimes and francs which circulated alongside French currency. In 1912, the Comoros became a province of Madagascar, a French possession. French banknotes and coins circulated in the colony. Apart from an emergency issue of small change notes in 1920, the French currency circulated alone until 1925. On 1 July 1925, the French government formed an agreement with the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas to create the Banque de Madagascar, headquartered in Paris, granted it a private monopoly to issue currency for the colony of Madagascar; the Malagasy franc was equivalent to the French franc and French coins continued to circulate as Madagascar had no coins of its own until 1943.

When the Comoros became a separate French territory in 1945, the name of the issuing bank was changed to the Banque de Madagascar et des Comores. A branch office opened in Comoros in 1953. While the banknotes were changed to reflect the new status of Comoros, the coins were not changed and bore only the name Madagascar. On 26 December 1945, the Madagascar-Comores CFA franc was established and its value was fixed at 1.7 French francs. Old Madagascar coins and banknotes continued to circulate as this new currency. On 17 October 1948, the CFA franc was revalued to 2 French francs. In 1950, the French government took over majority ownership of the Banque de Madagascar et des Comores. On 1 January 1960, the French franc was revalued, with 100 old francs becoming 1 new franc; the new exchange rate was 1 Madagascar-Comores CFA franc = 0.02 French francs. On 26 June 1960, Madagascar gained independence from France, the Institut d'Émission Malgache was created to issue currency only for Madagascar. Madagascar left the CFA zone effective 1 July 1973.

On 23 November 1979, the government of Comoros signed the Accord de coopération monétaire entre la République Française et la République fédérale islamique des Comores, a monetary cooperation agreement with France, making Comoros part of the franc zone. This agreement provided for the establishment of a system of fixed parity between the French franc and the Comorian franc and free convertibility between the two currencies, guaranteed by the Comorian central bank's opening of an operations account at the French Treasury to handle all exchange transactions. Sixty-five percent of the foreign exchange reserves of Comoros are held in euros in this account; this account is similar to overnight deposits with the French Treasury: it may bear interest and may, in special circumstances, post a negative balance. However, to prevent this account from showing a lasting overdraft, a number of preventative measures have been set up; the stability of the Comorian franc is founded on tight monetary and credit discipline, underpinned by two specific safeguard measures: the central bank is required to maintain 20% foreign-exchange cover of its sight liabilities, the government is not allowed to draw more than 20% of the previous year's budget receipts from their central bank funds.

The ministers of finance of the franc area meet biannually. The agreement between France and the Comoros is the same as the agreement France has with the CFA Zone, it is a continuation of a relationship of monetary cooperation between the two countries that has existed for more than a century. Until 1994, the Comorian franc was pegged to the French franc at the rate of 50 Comorian francs to 1 French franc; this was changed on January 12, 1994, when the currency was devalued in concert with the CFA franc devaluation. However, the Comorian franc was devalued 33⅓% to a new rate of 75 Comorian francs for 1 French franc, while the CFA franc's new rate was 100 CFA francs to 1 French franc. With the creation of the euro in January 1999, the Comorian franc was pegged, at its prevailing rate, to the new currency; the exchange rate is now 491.96775 Comorian francs to 1 euro. In 1998 in anticipation of European Monetary Union, the Council of the European Union addressed the monetary agreements France has with the CFA Zone and Comoros and ruled that: the agreements are unlikely to have any material effect on the monetary and exchange rate policy of the Euro zone in their present forms and states of implementation, the agreements are unlikely to present any obstacle to a smooth functioning of economic and monetary union nothing in the agreements can be construed as implying an obligation for the European Central Bank or any national central bank to support the convertibility of the CFA and Comorian francs modifications to the existing agreements will not lead to any obligations for the European Central or any national central bank the French Treasury will guarantee the free convertibility at a fixed parity between the euro and the CFA and Comorian francs the competent French authorities shall keep the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the Economic and Financial Committee informed about the implementation of the agreements and inform the Committee prior to changes of the parity between the euro and the CFA and Comorian francs any change to the nature or scope of the agreements would require Council approval on the basis of a Commission recommendation and ECB consultation Th

The local churches and the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee have been the subject of controversy in two major areas over the past fifty years. To a large extent these controversies stem from the rapid increase and spread of the local churches in the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1970s they became a target of opposition of fledgling countercult ministries. Unsupported criticisms of anti-social behaviors led to three libel litigations. In addition, some criticized the teaching of Witness Lee on the nature of God, God's full salvation, the church. By the 1960s the writings of Watchman Nee had become popular among evangelicals, including many in Campus Crusade for Christ. In 1968 Campus Crusade's national field director Jon Braun, who had read Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Church Life, all of the regional directors under him left Campus Crusade seeking the New Testament church. A short time Braun joined a group led by Gene Edwards, a former Southern Baptist evangelist.

Edwards had met with the local churches before leaving to carry out his own interpretation of what the church should be. In 1969 Campus Crusade launched what became Christian World Liberation Front at UC-Berkeley as an attempt to reach the young people in the counterculture. Jack Sparks, a former statistics professor at Penn State and Crusade staff member, soon became the dominant figure in CWLF. Throughout the early 1970s Sparks and Braun, who knew each other through CCC, gave talks at CWLF gatherings against Witness Lee and the local churches to stem the loss of members to the church in Berkeley. Braun, who had a bitter split with Gene Edwards and left his group, joined with Sparks and five other former Crusade leaders to establish the New Covenant Apostolic Order with themselves as apostles. In 1979 six of the original seven NCAO apostles appointed themselves bishops of the newly formed Evangelical Orthodox Church. In 1974 three CWLF members founded a subsidiary countercult ministry, Spiritual Counterfeits Project.

In early 1975 Sparks asked a young CWLF staff member, Alan Wallerstedt, to prepare a manuscript critiquing the teaching and practices of the local churches. That year Sparks tried to convert CWLF into a church and bring it under the authority of the NCAO; the large majority of members would not go along and CWLF split. Wallerstedt followed Sparks but completed the manuscript he had been commissioned to write for SCP. Thus, both the NCAO and SCP had copies of Wallerstedt's manuscript. In the summer of 1976 Peter Gillquist, the presiding NCAO apostle, became the head of the new books division at Thomas Nelson Publishers, a respected Bible publisher; the first book Gillquist commissioned was The Mindbenders by Jack Sparks. Sparks was listed as the putative author but the chapter on the local churches was written by Braun, although he had never met with the local churches, blamed Watchman Nee and Witness Lee for his negative experience with Gene Edwards. Meanwhile, SCP was independently developing Wallerstedt's manuscript into a book titled The God-Men.

First editions of both The Mindbenders and The God-Men were published in 1977. Responding to the strong demand for countercult publications after the Jonestown tragedy of November 1978, second editions of both books were published. Before and after each edition of either book was published, members of the local churches wrote letters of protest to the authors and publishers and attempts were made to contact them both and by phone. Nelson alone received three hundred responses. InterVarsity Press, the publisher of the second edition of The God-Men, received a response including over five hundred pages of supporting documentation refuting the book's charges; the Mindbenders and The God-Men accused the local churches not just of theological error but of sociological deviance, including practicing authoritarianism, thought reform, isolation of members, deceptive recruiting, use of fear and humiliation to control members, financial malfeasance. Following publication, members of the local churches became objects of harassment, physical assault, attempted deprogrammings.

In addition, members were dismissed from jobs and family relationships were damaged. In China the Three-Self Patriotic Movement commissioned two men to write a book to provide justification for a nationwide persecution against the local churches; the authors relied on its accusations in their writing. Over two thousand local church members were arrested, many were given extended sentences, some were executed. In 1980, after all attempts to communicate with the authors and publishers were rebuffed, groups of local churches and individual church members filed libel actions concerning The Mindbenders in four jurisdictions—Anaheim, Dallas and Cleveland; the lawsuits named Nelson, Braun, Dick Ballew, Gillquist as defendants. The discovery process was subsequently consolidated to expedite the cases. A separate libel action was filed by the Church in Anaheim, Witness Lee, William T. Freeman against Neil Duddy, the principal author of The God-Men. Although the local churches protested that both The Mindbenders and The God-Men misrepresented their teachings, the issues raised in the lawsuits were not theological but were based on the books’ false and defamatory accusations of sociological deviance.

Discovery in The Mindbenders case revealed that Gillquist had used his position within Nelson to push for publication of the book over objections from internal staff and outside reviewers of the pre-pu

American company Ace Books began publishing genre fiction starting in 1952. These were in the attractive tête-bêche format, but they published a few single volumes, in the early years, that number grew until the doubles stopped appearing in about 1978; the tête-bêche format was discarded in 1973. Between 1952 and 1968, the books had a letter-series identifier; the list given here covers every Ace Double published for all genres. It gives a date of publication. For more information about the history of these titles, see Ace Books, which includes a discussion of the serial numbering conventions used and an explanation of the letter-code system. Ace published science fiction and westerns, as well as books not in any of these genres. Collectors of these genres have found the Ace doubles an attractive set of books to collect, because of the unusual appearance of the tête-bêche format; this is true for the science fiction books, for which several bibliographic references have been written. The format inspired a further series of sf doubles published by Tor Books between 1988 and 1991, the Tor Double Novels.

Because the tête-bêche format is part of the attraction for collectors, titles published between 1974 and 1978, which contained two titles by one or two authors but which are not tête-bêche, are not regarded by some collectors as true Ace Doubles. The distinction is up to each collector; the list given here includes an indication of the genre of the works, in italics after the serial number. Abbreviations used are "SF" for science fiction titles. In addition, "NA" is used to mean "not applicable", when one or both of the books is not in one of these three genres; the list gives a date of publication. The list is thought to be complete, but there may be minor omissions among the lists. For more information about the history of these titles, see Ace Books, which includes a discussion of the serial numbering conventions used and an explanation of the letter-code system; the double format inspired contests for ironic or satirical combinations of titles that might appear, as in "No Blade of Grass"/"The Sheep Look Up" "If the Holy Bible was printed as an Ace Double", an editor once remarked, "it would be cut down to two 20,000-word halves with the Old Testament retitled as ‘Master of Chaos’ and the New Testament as ‘The Thing With Three Souls.’" D-001 MY Samuel W. Taylor The Grinning Gismo / Keith Vining Too Hot For Hell D-002 WE William Colt MacDonald Bad Man's Return / J. Edward Leithead Bloody Hoofs D-003 MY Mel Colton The Big Fix / Kate Clugston Twist the Knife Slowly D-004 WE Lewis B.

Patten Massacre at White River / Walter A. Tompkins Rimrock Rider D-005 MY Eaton R. Goldthwaite The Scarlet Spade / Harry Whittington Drawn To Evil D-006 WE William E. Vance The Branded Lawman / Nelson C. Nye Plunder Valley D-007 MY Stephen Ransome I, the Executioner / Harry Whittington So Dead My Love! D-008 WE Allan K. Echols Terror Rides the Range / Tom West Gunsmoke Gold D-009 MY Michael Morgan Decoy / Sherwood King If I Die Before I Wake D-010 WE Leslie Scott The Brazos Firebrand / Gordon Young Hell on Hoofs D-011 MY Day Keene Mrs. Homicide / William L. Stuart Dead Ahead D-012 WE Dudley Dean Mcgaughty The Man From Boot Hill / Dan J. Stevens Wild Horse Range D-013 NA Theodore S. Drachman Cry Plague! / Leslie Edgley The Judas Goat D-014 WE Paul Evan Lehman Vultures On Horseback / George Kilrain Maverick With A Star D-015 MY William Burroughs Junkie / Maurice Helbrant Narcotic Agent D-016 MY Edmond de Goncourt and J. De Goncourt Germinie / Paul Bourget Crime D'Amour D-017 MY William Campbell Gault Shakedown / Howard Fast The Darkness Within D-018 WE J. Edward Leithead The Lead-Slingers / Samuel Peeples The Hanging Hills D-019 MY Hal Braham Never Kill A Cop / Leslie Edgley Fear No More D-020 WE Roy Manning The Desparado Code / Allan K. Echols Double-Cross Brand D-021 MY John N. Makris Nightshade / Lester Dent High Stakes D-022 WE Bliss Lomax Maverick Of The Plains / Leslie Scott Badlands Masquerader D-023 MY Louis Trimble Bring Back Her Body / Richard Sale Passing Strange D-024 WE Tom West Vulture Valley / John Callahan The Sidewinders D-025 NA P. G. Wodehouse Quick Service / The Code Of The Woosters D-026 NA Harold Acton and Lee Yi-Hsieh Love In A Junk And Other Exotic Tales / Charles Pettit The Impotent General D-027 MY Bruno Fischer The Fingered Man / Hal Braham Double Take D-028 WE Paul Evans Gunsmoke Kingdom / William E. Vance Avenger From Nowhere D-029 MY Ross Laurence The Fast Buck / J. F. Hutton Dead Man Friday D-030 WE George Kilrain South To Santa Fe / Samuel Peeples Johnny Sundance D-031 SF A. E. van Vogt The World of Null-A / The Universe Maker D-033 MY Carl G. Hodges Murder By The Pack / Frank Kane About Face D-034 WE Ken Murray Hellion's Hole / Ken Murray Feud In Piney Flats D-035 NA Rae Loomis The Marina Street Girls / Jack Houston Open All Night (195