News comes of Fouad al-Farhan and his release after 137 days in jail. He was detained for being critical of the Kingdom and its repressive approach to government. Following on from my previous post on human rights in Saudi Arabia, this is no surprise.

The Kingdom is very sensitive to any mention of reform or greater freedom of expression. It has huge strategic importance in the Gulf area and has always been a major bulwark for the West against Iraq and Iran. At the same time its treatment of its own citizens has left a lot to be desired. In some ways its an example of the ultimate trade off between human rights and strategic concerns.

But the key issue here is one of freedom of speech. Many organizations have worked long and hard around the world to support people like Fouad who are imprisoned on no charge and on spurious grounds at best.

Amnesty is one and needs no introduction but Index on Censorship is another organization doing great work in preventing and informing us on cases of repression and curtailment of speech.

It’s a cause all bloggers should support.

Following a huge campaign the death sentence on Pervez Kambaksh was lifted and we finally heard from him about his experience at the hands of the Afghani justice system.

Stories about the Taliban’s treatment of women and those who try to help them are legendary in their barbarism.

Now we hear about the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. It’s one thing to treat women with violence (we have plenty enough of that terrible behaviour in the non-Islamic world) but the dis-empowerment via lack of rights and education is really unacceptable at the most basic level. It means there really is no escape from a life of slavery.

This extremist form of Islam does a dis-service to mainstream Islam and shows how vast and wide that congregation is in terms of beliefs and practices.

You wont hear anyone in power being critical of Saudi Arabia because their strategic position is so important and of course they buy a lot of weapons and sell a lot of oil. The hypocrisy of human rights and trade is summarised nicely here.

This year it’s the 60th Anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. The UN better start pulling its finger out before it gets done under the trades description act.

It reads like a Tom Clancy plotline: The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence gets briefed on the national security implications of a collapse in the $. Suddenly there is a realisation that the US is very exposed not just economically but politically. Those who have read “Debt of Honour” will be familiar with the plot which involves a crashing of the US financial system using a coordinated attack on the $ and the Treasury market. Alas this is now not fiction but real time.

The $ is being abandoned wholesale and the US intelligence service is right to be focusing on what this could mean for national security just as the Pentagon did when they commissioned a report on the security implications of climate change back in 2004.

With Gold heading towards $1000/oz, Oil above $100/bl, the $ in freefall and the financial system in a mess, one could be forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t get much worse. Well stock prices still have plenty of room to fall and probably another 10-15% is about right. Property will continue to sag also.

But the main problem is the US getting the big fat raspberry from the rest of the world. It’s stretched militarily, politically it’s pretty much lost all credibility and now economically its kaputski, as its Russian pals would say.

Who caused this mess? Well according to some it was Sir Alan. No not Alan Sugar of Asmtrad and Spurs fame but Alan Greenspan. This little piece on his actions in 1987 paints an interesting picture.

Let’s hope someone with half a brain is in charge back in Washington otherwise this could get very messy.

The recent visit of the Saudi Arabian King Abudullah has caused no end of consternation amongst activists of all hue. Let’s face it the Kingdom is not exactly progressive when it comes to human rights or gender equality.

The famous “ethical foreign policy” of the Blair years, a deception like most other announcements of that time, is clearly is misnomer. The real question is can there ever be ethics in foreign policy?

Foreign policy is all about making sure ones national interest is enhanced, or at least not set back, by international events. As Mick Hume notes realpolitik is still the name of the game. Yes we will be enraged at hideous regimes but we have to consider our trade interests blah blah blah.

New Zealand tends to take the higher moral ground where possible but of course people would argue NZ is too small for anyone to notice. The stance of our neighbours across the ditch is somewhat different and maybe its because they have more to worry about with Indonesia to the North and as a bigger economy they interact more competitively with other interests in the region.

It’s an interesting dilemma. The Great Game continues and its hard to see when its going to stop. Until then expect ethics and morals to be trotted out only around election time.