Billion$ Leave the U.S. by Immigrants

Ah, but all those immigrants in our country today are here with families right? Not so much. Further, wide debates circle around re-patrioting U.S. currency stashed in foreign countries, but can that really happen or keep pace with what foreign nationals are sending out of the country? We are talking billions here. They are pointing to Mexicans, but there should be a real challenge, are they all really Mexicans? How much is terror money or narco-dollars?

Imagine if the Mexicans are doing this, then are the militant Islamic factions that support Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad doing the same thing? Combine these dollars with those that are own federal government is doing at the behest of the White House, the State Department, USAID and secret grants. The Palestinians are hostile to Israel and the United States but the Federal government sends them billions. The Obama administration supported militants in Gaza, not to mention Hezbollah.

If Mexico was not a failed state, then why the billions in just the cooperative agreement called the Merida Initiative?

Mexicans in U.S. sent home $5.7 billion in remittances in first 3 months of 2015

Mexican living in the United States sent $5.7 billion in remittances back home in the first three months of 2015 alone, the highest amount of money sent to the country by expats since 2008, Banco de Mexico reported.

The amount of money that Mexicans living abroad sent to their family and friends back home between January and March of 2015 is 5 percent higher than it was in the same period last year, with remittances in March increasing 7.6 percent to $2.26 billion.

This averages out to each Mexican family living in the U.S. sending around $312 back to Mexico in March – or around $9 more than in March of 2014. The only time this number was higher was in July 2012, when Mexican families sent home an average of $314 that month.

“We hope that the slight increase in remittances in 2015 gives a brighter indication for growth and employment in the U.S. perspective,” said Alberto Ramos, an economist at Goldman Sachs report, according to Univision.

Ramos added that “a weaker Mexican peso and low domestic inflation increase the real purchasing power in local currency remittance flows.”

Banco de Mexico reported that 97 percent of remittances to the country came from the United States, with the other 3 percent coming from Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Spain. The U.S. states where the majority of remittances came from were California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Georgia and New York.

Some 11 million Mexicans live in the United States and many of them work in the construction sector. In this economic context, remittances are the main source of foreign exchange in Mexico, after oil and foreign direct investment, and also represent a vital income for millions of people.

 

Kerry Ignores ALL Iran Violations

Iran is a known and verified state sponsor of terror, of this there is no dispute. Iran has violated sanctions, agreements, hidden nuclear operations from inspectors and worse the United States has fought against Iran militia factions in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan at least since the 80’s.

Exactly how much slack is Barack Obama, John Kerry and even the other members of the P5+1 going to give Iran at the expense of the continue threat and nuclear operations of this rogue nation? Is there no red-line anywhere? Oh wait…every other country appears to have a red-line but that of the Obama administration either moves, changes color or is simply rhetoric. When foreign nations are leading the charge on stopping Iran, the West needs to take notice.

John Kerry was in Moscow this week meeting with the Russian leadership over Syria, Iraq and most of all Iran. Russia is not going to cooperate with the United Nations resolutions or with any sanctions against Iran. Kerry failed to gain Putin’s agreement.

A Russian official on Wednesday bluntly rejected claims that sanctions on Iran would be restored immediately should the Islamic Republic violate the terms of an agreement to curb its nuclear program, poking a hole in a central White House plank meant to soothe critics of the deal. The Obama administration has stated that Russia agreed “in principle” on the need to reimpose sanctions if Iran fails to comply with the agreement, but the Russian government has never confirmed that it agrees with such a stance.

Exclusive: Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran – sources

The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, U.N. experts and Western sources said.

The incident could add to Western concerns about whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal being negotiated with world powers under which it would curb sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

The negotiators are trying to reach a deal by the end of June after hammering out a preliminary agreement on April 2, with Iran committing to reduce the number of centrifuges it operates and agreeing to other long-term nuclear limitations.

Some details of the attempted purchase were described in the latest annual report of an expert panel for the United Nations Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee, which has been seen by Reuters.

The panel said that in January Iran attempted to buy compressors – which have nuclear and non-nuclear applications – made by the U.S.-owned company Howden CKD Compressors.

A Czech state official and a Western diplomat familiar with the case confirmed to Reuters that Iran had attempted to buy the shipment from Howden CKD in the Czech Republic, and that Czech authorities had acted to block the deal.

It was not clear if any intermediaries were involved in the attempt to acquire the machinery.

There was no suggestion that Howden CKD itself was involved in any wrongdoing. Officials at Prague-based Howden declined to comment on the attempted purchase.

The U.N. panel, which monitors compliance with the U.N. sanctions regime, said there had been a “false end user” stated for the order.

“The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions,” it added.

The report offered no further details about the attempted transaction. Iran’s U.N. mission did not respond to a query about the report.

CONTRACT WORTH $61 million

The Czech state official said the party seeking the compressors had claimed the machinery was needed for a compressor station, such as the kind used to transport natural gas from one relay station to another.

The official declined to say exactly how the transaction was stopped, provide specifications of the compressors or confirm the intended purchaser. However, he made clear it was the Czech authorities who halted the deal

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the total value of the contract would have been about 1.5 billion Czech koruna ($61 million).

This was a huge amount for the company concerned, the previously named CKD Kompresory, a leading supplier of multi-stage centrifugal compressors to the oil and gas, petrochemical and other industries.

The firm was acquired by Colfax Corp. of the United States in 2013 for $69.4 million. A spokesman for Colfax declined to comment.

The United States and its Western allies say Iran continues to try to skirt international sanctions on its atomic and missile programs even while negotiating the nuclear deal.

The U.N. panel of experts also noted in its report that Britain informed it of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to blacklisted firms.

While compressors have non-nuclear applications in the oil and gas industry, they also have nuclear uses, including in centrifuge cascades. Centrifuges purify uranium gas fed into them for use as fuel in nuclear reactors or weapons, if purified to levels of around 90 percent of the fissile isotope uranium-235.

“Such compressors can be used to extract enriched uranium directly from the cascades,” Olli Heinonen, former deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a nuclear expert currently at Harvard University, told Reuters.

“In particular, they are useful when working with higher enrichment such as 20 percent enriched uranium,” he said, adding that precise specifications of the compressors in question would be necessary to make a definitive assessment.

Iran has frozen production of 20 percent enriched uranium, a move that Western officials cite as one of the most important curbs on Iranian nuclear activities under an interim agreement in 2013.

Tehran rejects allegations by Western powers and their allies that it is seeking the capability to produce atomic weapons and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA and the United States have said repeatedly that Tehran has adhered to the terms of the 2013 interim deal.

 

 

 

Lying to a Judge? Just Strip Their Law License

The Department of Justice has employs more than 10,000 lawyers and they have the money, personnel, resources and technology to ‘get-it-right’. But under Eric Holder, now replaced by Loretta Lynch, lawyers before the court in the immigration case obfuscated the truth and chose NOT to ‘get-it-right’. Simply states, it is malpractice with purpose. Strip their license..PERIOD.

No one will be disciplined, terminated or sanctioned..it just does not happen in the Federal government. So what happened before the judge? It should also be noted, obscure work at Justice goes on past midnight….hummm

Obama Administration Admits It Violated Judge’s Order to Halt Implementation of Immigration Plan

by: Hans von Spakovsky

In another midnight filing last week in the immigration lawsuit filed by 26 states against the Obama administration in the Southern District of Texas, the U.S. Justice Department admitted that the Department of Homeland Security had violated federal Judge Andrew Hanen’s Feb. 16 injunction against President Obama’s immigration amnesty plan.

This was not the first such admission by the government. It had previously filed an “Advisory” on March 3 informing Judge Hanen that between Nov. 20, 2014, when the president announced his immigration plan, and Feb. 16 when the injunction was issued, the Department of Homeland Security had begun implementing part of the president’s plan by issuing three-year deferrals to over 100,000 illegal aliens.

In other words, despite having told Judge Hanen both in court and in written pleadings that no part of the president’s plan was being implemented until late February at the earliest, government officials were doing exactly the opposite.

On April 7, Judge Hanen issued an order with a scathing analysis of the Justice Department’s misbehavior, finding that “attorneys for the government misrepresented the facts” to the court. He told the Justice Department that he expected all of the parties in the case, including the government, “to act in a forthright manner and not hide behind deceptive representations and half-truths.”

Hanen also gave the Justice Department lawyers a hard time over not having informed him immediately upon their discovery of this misrepresentation, saying that their claim that they took prompt, remedial action was “belied by the facts”—namely, that they waited over two weeks to tell the judge.

In the latest Advisory filed on May 7, the Justice Department informed Hanen that the Department of Homeland Security “sent three-year work authorizations after the Court had issued its injunction” to approximately 2,000 individuals. This time, the Justice Department lawyers assert they only found out about the violation of the injunction order the day before the filing.

They also say that Department of Homeland Security is in the process of converting “these three-year terms into two-year terms” and that Secretary Jeh Johnson has asked the “DHS Inspector General to investigate the issuance of these three-year [Employment Authorization Documents].”

In a separate, supplemental three-page order issued on May 8, Judge Hanen cites additional evidence to support his finding that the states have standing to challenge Obama’s immigration plan. In his Feb. 16 injunction order, Hanen referenced statements by Obama that there would be consequences for any Homeland Security employee who did not follow the requirements of the Nov. 20 amnesty plan. The Justice Department had tried to downplay the president’s statements.

However, Judge Hanen notes that while testifying on April 14—after the injunction was issued—before the House Judiciary Committee, Sarah Saldana, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “reiterated that any officer or agent who did not follow the dictates of the 2014 DHS Directive would face the entire gamut of possible employee sanctions, including termination.”

Hanen said that “the president’s statements have now been reaffirmed under oath by the very person in charge of immigration enforcement.”

Thus, according to Hanen, the government “has announced, and has now confirmed under oath, that it is pursuing a policy of mandatory non-compliance (with the [Immigration and Nationality Act]), and that any agent who seeks to enforce the duly-enacted immigration laws will face sanctions—which could include the loss of his or her job.”

It is this “clear abdication of the law by the government—a law that is only enforceable by the government and outside the province of the states” that gives the states standing to bring suit.

The latest actions by the government may make it even harder for Justice Department lawyers to convince the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Judge Hanen’s injunction.

 

Very Fitting Chicago Junk Rating, Obama Library

For a sitting president to whine about the poor not getting enough money and to slam a media outlet over reporting ‘Obama-phones’, Chicago is the junk banner for Obama. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced his ‘War on Poverty’ plan where 50 years later, there is no question it failed about spending $22 TRILLION dollars.

The White House had economic advisors examine President Johnson’s plan and decided to re-tool it is all areas but of particular note in the ‘investment in and rebuilding hard-hit communities’. Obama announced ‘Promise Zones’.

The Promise Zones initiative will build on existing programs, including the Department of HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods and the Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods grant programs. The Administration has invested $248 million in Choice and $157 million in Promise since 2010. For every federal dollar spent, Choice Neighborhoods has attracted eight dollars of private and other investment and has developed nearly 100,000 units of mixed-income housing in 260 communities, ensuring that low-income residents can afford to continue living in their communities. Promise Neighborhoods grants are supporting approximately 50 communities representing more than 700 schools. To help leverage and sustain grant work, 1,000 national, state, and community organizations have signed-on to partner with a Promise Neighborhood site. By expanding these programs, the Administration continues to support local efforts to transform low-income urban, rural, and tribal communities across the country. *** Is Baltimore or Chicago or Detroit a ‘Promise Zone’? Chicago is no model in fact the city now carries a ‘junk’ status, and it is fitting that Obama has chosen to place his presidential library there. Cant make this up…

Moody’s downgrades Chicago debt to ‘junk’ with negative outlook

Moody’s downgraded Chicago’s credit rating down to junk level “Ba1” from “Baa2.” The announcement, which the ratings agency released Tuesday afternoon, cited a recent Illinois court ruling voiding state pension reforms. Moody’s said it saw a negative outlook for the city’s credit.

Following that May court decision, Moody’s said it believes that “the city’s options for curbing growth in its own unfunded pension liabilities have narrowed considerably.”

So let the fund-raising begin. More federal dollars and the launch of collusion for the Obama library.

Obama library likely to set off a fundraising frenzy

The announcement Tuesday that Barack Obama will build his presidential library in Chicago did more than excite the South Side of the city. It also kicked off what’s likely to become a fundraising frenzy.

Even if Obama doesn’t raise any money himself – as he pledged not to do while in office – independent analysts fear that fundraising on his behalf still might create conflicts of interest in his final two years in the White House.

 

“Is this a problem? Absolutely,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. “Even if he doesn’t solicit himself, (donors) are seeing all kinds of signals that this is a priority for him. It’s all a wink and a nod. … It buys access.”

The Barack Obama Foundation – a group composed of his longtime friends and supporters, including his former campaign manager and fundraiser – is expected to collect hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps rivaling the $700 million Obama raised to win the White House in the first place.

 

Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, a government watchdog group, said presidents should wait until they left office to raise money for their libraries. But most contributions come while a president is in office and most donations, he said, come from those who have issues pending before the administration.

“He’s doing this while he’s in office because he knows that will pull in the money,” Holman said. “It is very problematic. The conflict of interest is ever present.”

Donations will pay for the construction of the facility, which will be much more than a library: part museum, part education center and part archive, as well as a gift shop and restaurant. It will house enough unclassified documents to fill four 18-wheelers and enough artifacts to fill a swimming pool. Private contributions and taxpayers’ dollars will share the cost of maintenance after the doors open in 2020 or 2021.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday that the foundation had taken a number of steps to alleviate any potential fundraising problems, though he wasn’t aware of whether the White House had spoken to the foundation about that.

“Certainly the foundation was interested in living up to the very high standard that the president himself established,” he said.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama had considered two other states, Hawaii, where Obama was born, and New York, where he graduated from college. They settled on the University of Chicago, in the city where he launched his political career and met his wife, and they started their family.

“All the strands of my life came together and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago,” Obama said in a statement. “That’s where I was able to apply that early idealism to try to work in communities in public service. That’s where I met my wife. That’s where my children were born.”

In the last 24 hours surrounding the announcement, at least three emails were sent to previous Obama supporters about the library. “Over the next two years, you and I have the unique opportunity to help lay the groundwork for the foundation while the president is still in office,” said one from former senior adviser David Axelrod.

Coming up next from the foundation: an onslaught of phone solicitations, small-donor Internet appeals and discreet one-on-one conversations with the wealthiest of donors.

Foundation officials say they won’t accept donations from organizations that aren’t nonprofits, from individuals who are foreign nationals or from federal lobbyists.

James “Skip” Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, who played an influential role in the creation of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, said most library donors were past supporters of presidents or those who lived in the areas where the facilities were to be built.

Under current law, there are no fundraising restrictions for presidential libraries. Money can be raised while the president is still in office and contributors don’t need to be disclosed.

Obama’s foundation has pledged to release the names of those who contribute more than $200 on its website on a quarterly basis, though only with donation ranges and no further identifying information.

Since the foundation was created last year, several wealthy supporters have donated a total of roughly $3 million to $6 million. Many of them raised money for Obama during one of his campaigns or were appointed by him to various boards.

For years, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have considered whether presidential libraries should be required to disclose their donors. A pair of bipartisan bills is pending that would require the disclosure of contributions of more than $200 in an online searchable and downloadable format.

Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., said his bill would “bring sunlight to the presidential library fundraising process, helping to eliminate even the appearance of impropriety.”

As a senator and a candidate for president, Obama backed the disclosure of contributors and bundlers to presidential foundations.

Government watchdog groups say his foundation’s current disclosures don’t go far enough.

“It will be critically important that President Obama and his staff be completely transparent about their fundraising for the library over the next 19 months,” said Chris Gates, president of the Sunlight Foundation, which pushes for government openness. “The public has a right to know who is contributing to the library and what interests they may have with the federal government while he’s still in office.”

Thirteen presidential libraries operated by the National Archives and Records Administration are scattered across the nation, from Boston (John F. Kennedy) to Yorba Linda, Calif. (Richard Nixon).

Ronald Reagan’s library in Simi Valley, Calif., had been the most popular, with about 400,000 visitors annually. But the newest library, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, drew nearly 500,000 people last year, its first full year.

Obama’s library might very well surpass those numbers because of his historic tenure as the first African-American president in the United States.

 

Obama Has it Both Ways on Iran

Barack Obama has the memo on Iran…in fact all of them and he has dismissed them for the sake of continued talks on the nuclear program. He admits Iran is a sponsor of terror. The president knows full well the history of Iran yet still works diligently to sell an unwritten deal where sanctions and inspections of Iran are not only debatable but suspect at best.

There is chatter that Saudi Arabia has taken delivery of nuclear weapons they funded through Pakistan’s program while the arms race builds in the Middle East as other Gulf States are in talks with acquiring nuclear weapons.

This era has become the most dangerous and threatening in the world since the Cuban missile crisis under Barack Obama, his National Security Council and with John Kerry, Secretary of State. The whole globe understands the full risk of a nuclear Iran as well as their proxy armies deployed in several locations across the world. Terrorism de jour and sponsoring more is the constant mission of Iran.

Obama says Iran sponsors terrorism

WASHINGTON – President Obama is calling Iran “a state sponsor of terrorism” in his first interview with an Arab newspaper, as he tries to sell skeptical regional allies on a nuclear deal with the terror-backing state.

It was his toughest comments about Iran since the US and other nations reached the tentative nuclear pact with Tehran.

Obama gave the interview to the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat on the eve of a Camp David summit with leaders and officials of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which represents Persian Gulf Arab nations — although several heads of state are skipping the Camp David affair Thursday.

“The countries in the region are right to be deeply concerned about Iran’s activities, especially its support for violent proxies inside the borders of other nations,” Obama said, a reference to Hezbollah and other groups.

“Iran clearly engages in dangerous and destabilizing behavior in different countries across the region. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. It helps prop up the Assad regime in Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen,” Obama said.

Obama made his reassuring comments as he prepares to brief Arab allies on the status of the nuclear framework reached with Iran following months of negotiations with the regime that included a half-dozen nations.

Anxious about the Iranian threat, Gulf nations are seeking security guarantees from the US. Obama told the paper “there should be no doubt about the commitment of the United States to the security of the region” and our Gulf partners.

He also called for “working to resolve the conflicts across the Middle East that have taken so many innocent lives and caused so much suffering for the people of the region.”

“When it comes to Iran’s future, I cannot predict Iran’s internal dynamics. Within Iran, there are leaders and groups that for decades have defined themselves in opposition to both the United States and our regional partners,” the president said.

“I’m not counting on any nuclear deal to change that. That said, it’s also possible that if we can successfully address the nuclear question and Iran begins to receive relief from some nuclear sanctions, it could lead to more investments in the Iranian economy and more opportunity for the Iranian people, which could strengthen the hands of more moderate leaders in Iran. More Iranians could see that constructive engagement — not confrontation — with the international community is the better path,” he added.

Obama also said the US was taking a “hard look” at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and called for both sides to demonstrate a “genuine commitment” to a two-state solution.

It appears Obama isn’t taking Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s decision to skip the Camp David summit too hard. The newspaper is controlled by the king’s sons.

Iran’s weapons program continues to advance and any inspections are out of the question of their nuclear sites as told by Iran’s leadership.

Iran rejects Amano’s remarks on access to military sites

AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – AEOI spokesman said IAEA chief‘s interpretation of the Additional Protocol on getting access to Iran’s military sites is his own subjective interpretation, although Iran has reservations about it.

“Amano has not dictated any obligation for Iran but rather presented his own subjective interpretation of the Additional Protocol about which we have our reservations,” AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told IRIB on Wednesday, while referring to an Associated Press interview with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano on Tuesday.

Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday that a nuclear agreement being worked on by Tehran and the six states would give his experts the right to push for access to Iranian military sites.

Kamalvandi clarified, however, that the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s safeguards agreements does not oblige its signatories to allow inspections to their military sites.

“First of all, Iran has neither approved nor implemented the Additional Protocol yet; secondly, no article of the protocol dictates a specific obligation regarding access to the military sites of the signatories,” he asserted.

Kamalvandi added that under the Additional Protocol, access to the sites demanded by the UN nuclear agency requires evidence and the IAEA must take into account the considerations of the signatories, including security considerations.

“If a signatory has a reason to refrain from allowing a visit to the site, the Additional Protocol has permitted access to areas adjacent to the ones demanded by the IAEA or the use of other means of inspection,” he said.

He emphasized that if Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol, it would fulfill its commitments in accordance with the document.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will not allow inspections of its military facilities under the pretext of nuclear inspections.

Amano’s remarks came as Iran and the 5+1 negotiators kicked off a new round of deputy-level talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna on drafting the text of a final deal over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran and the 5+1 countries – the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany – are seeking to finalize a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program by the end of June. The two sides reached a mutual understanding in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2.

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – AEOI spokesman said IAEA chief‘s interpretation of the Additional Protocol on getting access to Iran’s military sites is his own subjective interpretation, although Iran has reservations about it.

“Amano has not dictated any obligation for Iran but rather presented his own subjective interpretation of the Additional Protocol about which we have our reservations,” AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told IRIB on Wednesday, while referring to an Associated Press interview with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano on Tuesday.

Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday that a nuclear agreement being worked on by Tehran and the six states would give his experts the right to push for access to Iranian military sites.

Kamalvandi clarified, however, that the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s safeguards agreements does not oblige its signatories to allow inspections to their military sites.

“First of all, Iran has neither approved nor implemented the Additional Protocol yet; secondly, no article of the protocol dictates a specific obligation regarding access to the military sites of the signatories,” he asserted.

Kamalvandi added that under the Additional Protocol, access to the sites demanded by the UN nuclear agency requires evidence and the IAEA must take into account the considerations of the signatories, including security considerations.

“If a signatory has a reason to refrain from allowing a visit to the site, the Additional Protocol has permitted access to areas adjacent to the ones demanded by the IAEA or the use of other means of inspection,” he said.

He emphasized that if Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol, it would fulfill its commitments in accordance with the document.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will not allow inspections of its military facilities under the pretext of nuclear inspections.

Amano’s remarks came as Iran and the 5+1 negotiators kicked off a new round of deputy-level talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna on drafting the text of a final deal over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran and the 5+1 countries – the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany – are seeking to finalize a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program by the end of June. The two sides reached a mutual understanding in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2.