A free-trade area is the region encompassing a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a free trade agreement. Such agreements involve cooperation between at least two countries to reduce trade barriers, import quotas and tariffs, to increase trade of goods and services with each other. If natural persons are free to move between the countries, in addition to a free-trade agreement, it would be considered an open border, it can be considered the second stage of economic integration. It is important to note the difference between free-trade areas. Both types of trading blocs are related to internal arrangements which parties conclude in order to liberalize and facilitate trade among themselves; the crucial difference between customs unions and free-trade areas is their approach to third parties. While a customs union requires all parties to establish and maintain identical external tariffs with regard to trade with non-parties, parties to a free-trade area are not subject to such requirement.

Instead, they may establish and maintain whatever tariff regime applying to imports from non-parties as deemed necessary. In a free-trade area without harmonized external tariffs, to eliminate the risk of trade deflection, parties will adopt a system of preferential rules of origin. Regarding the term free-trade area, it is meant by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to include only trade in goods. An agreement with a similar purpose, i.e. to enhance liberalization of trade in services, is named under Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Service as an "economic integration agreement". However, in practice, the term is now used to refer to agreements covering not only goods but services and investment; the formation of free-trade areas is considered an exception to the most favored nation principle in the World Trade Organization because the preferences that parties to a free-trade area grant each other go beyond their accession commitments. Although Article XXIV of the GATT allows WTO members to establish free-trade areas or to adopt interim agreements necessary for the establishment thereof, there are several conditions with respect to free-trade areas, or interim agreements leading to the formation of free-trade areas.

Firstly and other regulations maintained in each of the signatory parties to a free-trade area, which are applicable at the time such free-trade area is formed, to the trade with non-parties to such free-trade area shall not be higher or more restrictive than the corresponding duties and other regulations existing in the same signatory parties prior to the formation of the free-trade area. In other words, the establishment of a free-trade area to grant preferential treatment among its member is legitimate under WTO law, but the parties to a free-trade area are not permitted to treat non-parties less favorably than before the area is established. A second requirement stipulated by Article XXIV is that tariffs and other barriers to trade must be eliminated to all the trade within the free-trade are. Free trade agreements forming free-trade areas lie outside the realm of the multilateral trading system. However, WTO members must notify to the Secretariat when they conclude new free trade agreements and in principle the texts of free trade agreements are subject to review under the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements.

Although a dispute arising within free-trade areas are not subject to litigation at the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, "there is no guarantee that WTO panels will abide by them and decline to exercise jurisdiction in a given case". Trade diversion and trade creation In general, trade diversion means that a free-trade area would divert trade away from more efficient suppliers outside the area towards less efficient ones within the areas. Whereas, trade creation implies that a free-trade area creates trade which may not have otherwise existed. In all cases trade creation will raise a country's national welfare. Both trade creation and trade diversion are crucial effects found upon the establishment of a free-trade area. Trade creation will cause consumption to shift from a high-cost producer to a low-cost one, trade will thus expand. In contrast, trade diversion will lead to trade shifting from a lower-cost producer outside the area to a higher-cost one inside the area; such a shift will not benefit consumers within the free-trade area as they are deprived the opportunity to purchase cheaper imported goods.

However, economists find that trade diversion does not always harm aggregate national welfare: it can improve aggregate national welfare if the volume of diverted trade is small. Free-trade areas as public goods Economist have made attempts to evaluate the extent to which free-trade areas can be considered public goods, they firstly address one key element of free-trade areas, the system of embedded tribunals which act as arbitrators in international trade disputes. This system as a force of clarification for existing statutes and international economic policies as affirmed in the trade treaties; the second way in which free-trade areas are considered public goods is tied to the evolving trend of them becoming “deeper”. The depth of a free-trade area refers to the added types of structural policies. While older trade deals are deemed “shallower” as they cover fewer areas, more concluded agreements address a number of other fields, from services to e-commerce and data localization. Since transactions among parties to a free-trade area are cheaper as compared to those with non-parties, free-trade areas are conventionally found to be excludable.

Now that deep trade deals will enhance regulatory harmonization and increase trade flows w

The Province of Canterbury, or less formally the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces which constitute the Church of England. The other is the Province of York, it consists of 30 dioceses, covering two-thirds of England, parts of Wales, the Channel Islands, with the remainder comprising continental Europe. Between the years 787 and 803, a third province, existed. In 1871, the Church of Ireland became autonomous; the Church in Wales was disestablished in 1920 and therefore was no longer the state church. The province's metropolitan bishop is the Archbishop of Canterbury who oversees the Falkland Islands, an extraprovincial parish; the Church of Ceylon - Anglican Church in Sri Lanka has two dioceses - the Diocese of Colombo and the Diocese of Kurunegala which are extraprovincial dioceses under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishops of the southern province meet in chapter, in which the episcopal roles are analogous to those within a Cathedral chapter. In the 19th century, Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, discussed with the Bishop of Winchester and others the role of the Bishop of Winchester within the Chapter.

Lambeth Palace librarian Samuel Kershaw uncovered documents in which the Bishop of Winchester was Sub-Dean and the Bishop of Lincoln Chancellor, others in which Winchester was Chancellor and Lincoln Vice-Chancellor. Benson ruled that the Bishop of Winchester would be Chancellor of the province and additionally Sub-Dean only during a vacancy in the see of London. Besides the Archbishop of Canterbury, the officers of the chapter are: Bishop of London – Dean Bishop of Winchester – Chancellor Bishop of Lincoln – Vice-Chancellor Bishop of Salisbury – Precentor Bishop of Worcester – Chaplain Bishop of Rochester – Crucifer. Accordingly, at the confirmation ceremony following Justin Welby's election as Archbishop of Canterbury on 4 February 2013, these were, respectively: Richard Chartres, Tim Dakin, Christopher Lowson, Nick Holtam, John Inge and James Langstaff; the Bishops of London and Winchester join the Archbishop and two from the northern province of England in having ex officio the right to sit in the House of Lords subject to keeping to certain constitutional conventions incumbent on Lords Spiritual requiring them to speak in an albeit political, but non-partisan manner, not to participate in most party-whipped votes.

Twenty-one other Church of England diocesan bishops form the other Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords

Presidential elections was held in Zimbabwe on 16 and 17 March 1996. The elections were contested by the incumbent President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe Rhodesia-era Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa, ZANU–Ndonga leader Ndabaningi Sithole. Mugabe won, claiming over 90% of the vote, though turnout was just 32.3% as a result of Sithole and Muzorewa withdrawing their candidacies shortly before the election due to threats of violence. Sithole withdrew after claiming that Mugabe's ZANU–PF was undermining his campaign, whilst Muzorewa pulled out after the Supreme Court turned down his bid to postpone the elections on the basis that the electoral rules were unfair. In December 1997 Sithole was convicted of conspiring to assassinate Mugabe. There were 4,822,289 voters registered for the election