John Maxwell

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. If you really want to know what’s wrong with Haiti consider this: Last Thursday night, when it was clear that Rene Preval was getting something over 60% of the votes in the UN organized Haitian election, one of his opponents, the man coming second with about 12%…

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. We cannot say we weren’t warned. On May 6, 2002, the United States denounced the International Criminal Court, telling the United Nations that it would no longer consider itself bound by the Treaty establishing the ICC – signed by President Clinton in the closing days of his…

“In the words of General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, these most dangerous ‘folks’ are ready to chew their way through the hydraulic lines of a C-17 plane, to bring it down. And no doubt, they are capable of levitation, of causing ball lightning and turning people to stone with their…

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. On my way to Panama recently, I had the theoretical options of going by way of Miami or through Cuba. Obeying my instincts and listening to my intelligence, I decided more than a year ago that my life could do without my tempting fate and the PATRIOT…

The decomposing corpse of the West Indian sugar plantation system was officially certified dead last month, half a century after it had ceased to show signs of life. The declaration was greeted, as such declarations generally are, by much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The 18 African/Caribbean/Pacific (ACP) countries which are most affected, have…

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. As I understand them, the rules are pretty simple. Freedom of the Press is the public’s right to truthful information so that people can make up their own minds on matters which may concern their survival, their happiness and their ordinary existence. Corporations cannot have human rights…

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. “Man is born free and everywhere is in chains” was said by a Frenchman, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Two centuries after Rousseau, another Frenchman, one Nicholas Sarkozy describes millions of his fellow citizens as “scum” – among several other pungent epithets directed at them because they happen not…

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. My first, horror-struck reaction was to grab the phone. Were any of my children on the trains or on that bus? Two of my three children live in England and although they do not live in London, it was entirely possible that they might have been there…

This article originally appeared in the Jamaica Observer. Mr. Bush is on a roll. He’s so happy he’s thumbing his nose at the world. He’s got away with Abu Ghraib, with Fallujah and Haiti and everywhere the rent-a-crowd counter-revolutions just seem to go rolling along. For a man who had traveled out of the United…