Vermont is poised to require that all residents have health insurance.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott late last month quietly signed into law a bill that will include a penalty for those who don't have insurance. The mandate is scheduled to take effect in 2020.

A spokeswoman for the state's largest private health insurance provider said the mandate provides stability.

Nationally, many have rebelled against the idea the federal government could tell them what they needed to buy.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a similar law days later.

It remains to be seen if Congress will get its act together to pass a Farm Bill before year's end. But here's what we do know. If Congress succeeds in passing a 2018 Farm Bill, it will almost certainly be bad news for the organic industry.

We already know that the House version, H.R.2, includes potentially devastating attacks on organic and regenerative food and farming. Fortunately, the U.S. House of Representatives voted down H.R. 2 last week. But we're not out of the danger zone yet-the House is scheduled to vote on its bill again on June 22.

The Senate is about to drop its Farm Bill as early as June 6, according to Politico. We haven't seen that bill yet. But we do know that the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee-Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) - aren't great friends of organic. We also know that the Senate Farm Bill will be bipartisan-which means it's sure to pass.

Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed that his meeting with US President Donald Trump had not taken place yet because of the domestic political struggle in the United States.

"He [Trump] is a thoughtful man, he knows how to listen and responds to the arguments given by the interlocutor. This gives me the reason to believe that the dialogue can be constructive," Vladimir Putin said on the Rossiya 24 television channel.

Controversial billionaire George Soros is up in arms about Donald Trump again, claiming the US leader wants to "destroy the world" and needs to be kicked out of office.

Donald Trump is the "ultimate narcissist" who "is willing to destroy the world", Soros told the Washington Post on Saturday. He added that, if the Democratic Party wins the general election this November in a "landslide" and proceeds with an impeachment, he would support removing the president from office.

Chancellor Angela Merkel made a forceful pitch for Europe to play a more assertive role in global affairs as U.S. President Donald Trump dismantles the post-World War II order, setting the stage for a potential tense standoff at the Group of Seven summit this week.

The German leader again questioned the durability of trans-Atlantic relations by referring to eye-raising comments she made over a year ago in which she said that "the times when we could fully rely on others are to some extent over." Those words, spoken at a beer-tent election rally, were a reaction to Trump hectoring European leaders for not spending enough on defense at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Brussels. Since then, more fuel has been added to the fire.

Big things are happening in the arena of global power politics. The USA under Trump fears that it will be unseated as global hegemon by the looming threat of Eurasian integration. To forestall such an unpleasant situation, Trump and Co. have decided to 'reset the clock' on the way the US does business in the world and how it runs its empire. The first order of business is kicking Europe and any other 'lackeys' to the kerb, cutting them off from the 'favorable' trade deals they have enjoyed with the USA. The Europeans, Canadians, Japanese etc. are understandably not happy with this flagrant attempt to, in their words, destroy the "global order" that was built by the US itself.

Will Trump prevail in his ham-fisted attempts to Make America Great Again at the expense of long term "partners"? Will America remain on top in the face of major moves by Russia and China to create a 'New World Order'? Will the EU survive it all? Find out on this week's show with Joe and Niall.


This show aired live Sunday 10th June, from 12-1.30pm EST / 6-7.30pm CET

Running Time: 01:23:57

Download: MP3

So far in this series of pieces, I have attempted to demonstrate why I believe the official story of the poisoning of the Skripals doesn't add up (Part 1). I have then pointed to some of the most significant pieces of the jigsaw, which have either been largely ignored or quietly forgotten (Part 2). And I then went on in Part 3 to show what I believe to be perhaps the key to the whole case; that Mr Skripal became agitated in Zizzis restaurant, not because he was physically unwell and suffering from the effects of poisoning hours earlier, but rather because he had an appointment to keep.

But before coming on to propose a theory of what may have happened, I need to first present a theory of why it might have happened. I emphasise the word theory, because that is all it is - neither more nor less. And of course, it could be well wide of the mark. Make of it what you will!

In a recent blog, Craig Murray, the former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, linked to a very interesting piece by Paul Gregory that appeared in Forbes in January 2017. Mr Gregory is Professor of Economics at Houston University, and research fellow at both the Hoover Institution and the German Institute for Economic Research, and he also has extensive knowledge about Russia and the Soviet Union. Here's what he had to say about the so-called Trump Dossier, just a few days after it was published by Buzzfeed:

"As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference. It was written, in my opinion, not by an ex-British intelligence officer but by a Russian trained in the KGB tradition [my emphasis]."

Now, we know that there is a link between the apparent author of the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele and Mr Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller. And we know that Miller and Skripal met regularly. Not only this, but we also know that there is a direct link between Steele and Skripal dating back to the late 1990s, early 2000s. There is, then, a clear link between the man credited (if that be the right word) with writing the Dossier, and a certain ex-Russian intelligence officer, who would have been trained in the KGB tradition (he was actually in the GRU), living in Salisbury. In fact, the Daily Telegraph helpfully pointed out this connection a day before the Government slapped a D-notice on reporting on the issue.

But is there another clue? I think there is. By itself, it would mean nothing, but it is an interesting possibility in connection with what I have just stated.

In any analysis of contemporary international politics it pays to be cautiously pessimistic. As the default mode one can generally expect that any way in which things can go wrong to threaten the peace and security of the planet, they will. Anticipation of improvement is a chump's bet.

That's why the analyst's gut instinct rebels at any indication that things overall may be moving in a positive direction, however haltingly or indirectly.

Lavrov's visit to Rwanda was an astounding success because he discussed future military deals (including over air-defense systems), nuclear energy prospects, and economic cooperation with his counterpart, but there's more than meets the eye because some crucial context needs to be mentioned about what brought this unlikely pair of countries together in the first place. Russia has been supporting the nearby Central African Republic with arms and military trainers since the end of last year as it struggles to liberate the 80% of its civil war-torn but mineral-rich territory that's still under the control of various militias, and it's likely in this capacity that Russian representatives came into contact with some of the nearly 1000 Rwandan troops who form the more than 14,000-strong UN peacekeeping component in the country.

Tiny Rwanda punches well above its weight when it comes to military affairs, as it proved during the two Congo Wars, the first of which saw it conquer the gigantic neighboring country roughly 100x larger than its own size and then install an allied proxy as its leader. The Congo is once again nearing the brink of war and it's possible that the slow-motion meltdown of the past two years will accelerate into another full-blown collapse, potentially drawing Rwanda back into another Congolese conflict. Kigali already stages occasional raids into the Eastern Congo in order to hunt down Hutu militia leaders that it claims are "terrorists" and were involved in the 1994 genocide, and it's also reported to still be controlling Tutsi militia in the region as a means of indirectly countering them and maintaining influence there via the mineral trade that they're said to be involved in.

President Trump retracted his endorsement of the final statement from the G7, tweeting afterward he had instructed representatives "not to endorse" it. He blamed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's statement afterward that Canada will not be "pushed around" and will go through with retaliatory tariffs.


Trudeau, who has been sparring with Mr. Trump on trade in recent days, announced at the conclusion of the G-7 summit in Canada that the retaliatory tariffs will go into effect July 1. Trudeau said he told Mr. Trump "it would be with regret but it would be with absolute clarity and firmness that we move forward with retaliatory measures on July 1, applying equivalent tariffs to the ones that the Americans have unjustly applied to us."

"Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around," Trudeau said.