In the last few years, the United States has considered bilateral and regional free trade areas (FTAs) with a number of trading partners. Such arrangements are not new in U.S. trade policy. The United States has had a free trade arrangement with Israel since 1985 and with Canada since1989. The latter was suspended when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that included the United States, Canada, and Mexico, went into effect in January 1994. This report monitors pending and possible proposals for U.S. FTAs, relevant legislation and other congressional interest in U.S. FTAs.

Sri Lanka is a constitutional democracy with relatively high educational and social standards. Under Sri Lanka’s hybrid parliamentary model, an elected president appoints the cabinet in consultation with the prime minister. The country’s political, social, and economic development has been seriously constrained by ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil ethnic groups.

In the last few years, the United States has considered bilateral and regional free trade areas (FTAs) with a number of trading partners. Such arrangements are not new in U.S. trade policy. The United States has had a free trade arrangement with Israel since 1985 and with Canada since1989. The latter was suspended when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that included the United States, Canada, and Mexico, went into effect in January 1994. This report monitors pending and possible proposals for U.S. FTAs, relevant legislation and other congressional interest in U.S. FTAs.

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This report discusses the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) that provides assistance, through a competitive selection process, to developing nations that are pursing political and economic reforms in three areas: ruling justly, investing in people, and fostering economic freedom.

RF guns have proven useful in multiple accelerator applications. An RF gun capable of producing polarized electrons is an attractive electron source for the ILC or an electron-ion collider. Producing such a gun has proven elusive. The NEA GaAs photocathode needed for polarized electron production is damaged by the vacuum environment in an RF gun. Electron and ion back bombardment can also damage the cathode. These problems must be mitigated before producing an RF gun polarized electron source. In this paper we report continuing efforts to improve the vacuum environment in a normal conducting RF gun by cooling it with liquid nitrogen after a high temperature vacuum bake out. We also report on a design of a cathode preparation chamber to produce bulk GaAs photocathodes for testing in such a gun. Future directions are also discussed.