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The diversity of the African cultures led the scholars to the conclusion of the impossibility of a unique African indigenous religion (AIR); however, this view fails to account for the common spiritual elements found in Africa. Based on these elements, some scholars support the existence of a unique AIR, but these "common elements" are not found in every African culture. This article capitalizes on the scientific monotheism of the Kongo religion, the Bukongo, and its likeness to the solar religion of Egypt to improve the single-AIR approach and show the various AIRs to be results of the devolution of the original unique solar religion kept in the Bukongo. Contrary to the scholastic monotheism, demonstrated to be fallacious, the monotheism of the AIR is proven to be scientific through the use of a cosmological argument whose conclusions are mathematically convergent with Newtonian physics in its interpretation of the movements and stability of bodies at the astronomic and subatomic levels.

Abstract
The emergence of civil wars as the predominant type of conflict in the twenty-first century has prompted scholars to reformulate and revisit many of the questions treated in the interstate conflict literature. One of these questions concerns the impact of leadership changes on policy decisions within the realm of war and peace. Studies have suggested that in interstate disputes, the coming to power of new leaders in one or both of the disputing governments increases the prospects of war termination. We argue that within the context of intrastate disputes this relationship is more complex and multilayered due to factors that are characteristic of rebel groups and civil wars. We suggest that leader overturns in rebel groups are likely to lead, under certain conditions to more, rather than less, hardline conflict positions, at least in the short term, thus hindering possible negotiation processes. We test our hypothesis on a dataset of leadership changes and agreements ending civil wars in Africa, 1975–2007.

This paper studies the dialectics of modernist, postmodernist and neomodernist mind style as exemplified in Peter Palangyo's novel, Dying in the Sun ( DITS). Set in East Africa, the novel, especially its first half with its tragic vision replete with harrowing images of sickness, suffering, despair, and death, has often been described as an example of African neomodernist writing. However, this study appropriately locates it within the context of the "antimodernist" temper of postmodernism. The research investigates the author's and main character's narrative mind style referred to in modernism as stream of consciousness, its historicity, and landscape imagery as symbols of the defeat of despair and cynicism, as well as the resurgence of hope that dominates the second half of the novel. It considers the development of the character's perception as well as the narrator's point of view from cynicism and death to hope and understanding, and concludes that Palangyo's visionary mind style in the novel is an African solution to modernist cynicism and nihilism.

Beside its cost-efficient benefits, e-government plays an important role in reducing corruption. As most developing countries, especially in Africa are fighting corruption, e-government is seen as a new way of addressing it. E-government is thought to reduce corruption through increased transparency, better accountability and, the disappearance of the "middle-man" in the acquisition of public services by the citizenry. This paper tries to find out how e-government can decrease corruption by analyzing the implementation of e-government service of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) of Ghana using the "stages of growth" mode from socio-technical perspective. The outcome of the analysis suggests that the e-government service implementation by DVLA is still at its basic and rudimentary stage (Catalogue stage) and continuous presence of the "middle-man," high level of corruption, lack of transparency, accountability and trust in the acquisition of services provided by the Authority. The DVLA can still benefit from e-government if it commits to full implementation.

The discipline of International Relations and cognate fields of Comparative Politics and Development Studies have more or less successfully contained the study of Africa's condition within the limits of the dominant Western imagination, with grave consequences. Africa is seen and analyzed as a site of weak states and neopatrimonial rule. The continued dominance and ubiquity of such analytical vocabularies and their underlying methods rests on many forces, one of which is the reluctance to acknowledge that Africans can and do articulate their own analyses of their condition and to respect such analyses. This article seeks to remember some of the routinely forgotten international relations which structure Africa's contemporary condition, by turning to the work of Cameroonian film director Jean-Marie Teno. Teno's work, in particular Afrique Je Te Plumerai and Le Malentendu Colonial, is profoundly important for students of international relations. This article examines the content, form, and effect of the critique Teno elaborates in Afrique Je Te Plumerai.

ABSTRACT The current concern for a pandemic arises from an unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 influenza in birds and has spread across bird populations in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Given the rapid speed of transmission and the universal susceptibility of human populations, an outbreak of pandemic influenza anywhere poses a risk to populations everywhere. Indonesia suffers major loss due to high prevalence of the virus across the nation. The government undertakes several significant steps to address the issue, yet the numbers of infections are climbing up. The United States Agency of International Development builds upon a series of recent actions such as foreign aid, to eliminate negative implications on global scale as part of international respond toward transnational diseases outbreak. Through CBAIC, the agency collaborates with health authorities in Indonesia to prevent the pandemic of H5N1 virus, builds the capacity of the Indonesian government for pandemic response and reduce the occurrence of AI in poultry and humans. Keywords: transnational disease, avian influenza, foreign aid, USAID

This richly documented account of the arrival of rubber traders, new Christian missionaries, and the Portuguese colonial state in the Kongo realm is told from the perspective of the kingdom's inhabitants. Jelmer Vos shows that both Africans and Europeans were able to forward differing social, political, and economic agendas as Kongo's sacred city of São Salvador became a vital site for the expansion of European imperialism in Central Africa. Kongo people, he argues, built on the kingdom's long familiarity with Atlantic commerce and cultures to become avid intermediaries in a new system of colonial trade and mission schools. Vos underlines that Kongo's incorporation in the European state system also had tragic consequences, including the undermining of local African structures of authority—on which the colonial system actually depended. Kongo in the Age of Empire carefully documents the involvement of Kongo's royal court in the exercise of Portuguese rule in northern Angola and the ways that Kongo citizens experienced colonial rule as an increasingly illegitimate extension of royal power. [From the publisher] ; https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_books/1020/thumbnail.jpg

The discipline of International Relations and cognate fields of Comparative Politics and Development Studies have more or less successfully contained the study of Africa's condition within the limits of the dominant Western imagination, with grave consequences. Africa is seen and analyzed as a site of weak states and neopatrimonial rule. The continued dominance and ubiquity of such analytical vocabularies and their underlying methods rests on many forces, one of which is the reluctance to acknowledge that Africans can and do articulate their own analyses of their condition and to respect such analyses. This article seeks to remember some of the routinely forgotten international relations which structure Africa's contemporary condition, by turning to the work of Cameroonian film director Jean-Marie Teno. Teno's work, in particular Afrique Je Te Plumerai and Le Malentendu Colonial, is profoundly important for students of international relations. This article examines the content, form, and effect of the critique Teno elaborates in Afrique Je Te Plumerai. Adapted from the source document.

This paper provides an historical analysis of the concept of Greater Somalia, the nationalist project that advocates the political union of all Somali-speaking people, including those inhabiting areas in current Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. The Somali territorial unification project of "lost territories" was a direct consequence of the arbitrary borders drawn up by the European colonial powers in order to realise their expansionist interests. This paper underlines the instability produced by the European colonial powers in the Horn of Africa, and presents their arbitrary decisions as the root cause of Somali grievances and border disputes, which dogged the region from the end of colonial rule to the outbreak of civil war. The aim of the paper is three-fold: firstly, it seeks to identify the reasons behind the instability of Somalia's borders; secondly, it attempts to explain why the Greater Somalia project has not been realised. Finally, it discusses the overall issue, in order to achieve a balance in terms of myth and reality.

Abstract
This article focuses on the modes of territorial appropriation that characterized the transition from the old to the new colonial regime, when Europeans built their empires in Africa. It analyzes the juridical construction of colonial territorialities based on a corpus of treaties concluded between agents of the French colonial authority and African chiefs, an instrument of legal appropriation that has to date been little explored by historians of international law. Studying the terminology used in these treaties reveals the instability of these categories and the uncertainty of European negotiators regarding the meaning of the legal frameworks they sought to impose on African chiefs. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, the protectorate emerged as the most common legal arrangement for regulating the sharing or transfer of sovereignty, based on a distinction between its external and internal dimensions. The consent of African chiefs to such arrangements therefore hung on whether they considered their territorial sovereignty to be divisible or indivisible.

International audience ; Open access has become a significant part of scientific communication. With regards to dissemination of scientific production, the green road, i.e. self-archiving of scientific work in an open access repository, is often considered as the choice for developing countries because of lower investment and operational costs. This paper will provide a review of relevant literature on the topic, followed by a short overview of open repositories in sub-Saharan African countries, a region facing serious political, economic and social challenges. The main section will present a project for the digitizing of PhD theses of two universities in Togo, and we will then discuss questions and problems related to the specific conditions of the project, in order to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics and rich diversity of the open access movement. Is there an option for sustainable development of open access in these countries? The future will show whether open access contributes to reducing the digital divide between sub-Saharan Africa and other countries or whether it will instead consolidate this divide.

International audience ; Open access has become a significant part of scientific communication. With regards to dissemination of scientific production, the green road, i.e. self-archiving of scientific work in an open access repository, is often considered as the choice for developing countries because of lower investment and operational costs. This paper will provide a review of relevant literature on the topic, followed by a short overview of open repositories in sub-Saharan African countries, a region facing serious political, economic and social challenges. The main section will present a project for the digitizing of PhD theses of two universities in Togo, and we will then discuss questions and problems related to the specific conditions of the project, in order to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics and rich diversity of the open access movement. Is there an option for sustainable development of open access in these countries? The future will show whether open access contributes to reducing the digital divide between sub-Saharan Africa and other countries or whether it will instead consolidate this divide.

Okoume (Aucoumea klaineana, Burseraceae) is the most exploited timber tree species in Gabon (Central Africa), because of its great qualities for the production of veneer plywood. This tree is also known from a long time by Gabonese for making torches and as a substitute for incense. With the opening of international trade, the exploitation of okoume resin provides new and sustainable opportunities for the valuation of this species. This resin is sold in the markets of the Gabonese capital, Libreville, but also in Senegal and Europe. However, the European circuit, potentially the most profitable, is diverted to private interests and does not participate in the socio-economic development of the country, especially of that of rural people who often live in poverty. If this constraint can be lifted, the development of the sector will imply new management strategies and silvicutural recommendations according to resin vs timber production. The tappers' current silvicultural practices should be adapted to ensure higher production of better quality resin. Training and organization will be key for the development of this economic sector.