On YouTube albaraa1994 posted this video showing the flooding:

Saad Al Dosari says:

If anybody wishes to write a management book about project management failures, he will find plenty of examples in this aged bride of the red sea; Jeddah. Project management failures, this is my only explanation to what happened in Jeddah this past week. Millions and millions of riyals have been spent on projects that promised state of the art infrastructure to the long time forgotten city and guess what; those projects could not stand four hours of rain!

Ahmed Al Omran says:

This would not have happened if the people of Jeddah had a say in how their city is run. This would not have happened if there was transparency and accountability in how our country is governed. I’m beyond angry and disgusted.

According to MuSe:

Ironically most of the dead were non-Saudis and the poor, even death know how to discriminate. lots of head should be rolling the following days , lots of unfaithful and corrupted officials, but i am not optimistic about that, they keep gambling on our forgetting nature.

Najla is outraged:

Zuhair Alghamdi has an idea:

Eman Al Nafjan makes a suggestion:

Heavy rains led to flooding because of how the city is managed. Millions go into its infrastructure for digging sewers and putting in pipelines and paving roads but by the time the money finally trickles down to the purchase of material and hiring contractors, it doesn’t cover the costs anymore. For the past few years the people of Jeddah have been complaining and grumbling about it. […] I propose that the king hand over the Jeddah municipality to ARAMCO as he did with KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) when it became apparent that officials were skimming the budget.

KAUST is near Jeddah, and some students have written about how the rain affected the KAUST campus. Eric says:

This morning, after a rather romantic thunderstorm, all hell broke loose; along with a handful of houses. […] After blocking out the sirens and the impressive filing of emergency crew workers lining the streets I was able to soak in the damage of this otherwise harmless rain storm. The roads were flooded two feet deep in water, the entire female population had been evacuated from their housing (sent to Jeddah for at least the next week), and ten male students were relocated because the conditions in their homes were “uninhabitable” (in other words, they didn’t just have leaks, they had entire ceilings collapse in the middle of the night as a result of water build up). In short, KAUST had become a refugee camp in a matter of hours.

Another KAUST student, Nathan, writes:

Heavy rain is something like a natural disaster because the infrastructure here is not designed to handle water. Homes flooded, streets flooded, and the mobile phone network was knocked out for a while. The rain was pretty incredible, we must have got three inches in just under an hour (about 7.5 cm). The weather network says that Jeddah only gets 54 mm of Rain every year - we've exceeded our limit for the next 1.5 years in one night!

Ibrahim Hudaif asks:

Do they have at least a disaster recovery plan for the Shaheen the supercomputer center at KAUST?

Finally, Ahmad Qushmaq points out what makes these floods a little different:

Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabye keeps a dairy of his coverage on Blogspot. Last August, he wrote about the military actions between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels:

The Yemeni government said Thursday it would take a military actions to liberate schools and government buildings used as barracks by Al Houthi rebels in Sa'ada, north of the country.

He then continued:

The statement came after information about fierce battles between the rebels and government troops in which dozens were killed and injured from both sides over this week.
“Since President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered the halt of the military operations, the saboteurs and terrorists continued their attacks on the citizens and security forces, committing heinous crimes against everyone including elders, children and women, in addition to kidnapping, cutting roads, destroying houses,” the statement added.

But it seems that the Houthi rebels had a different point of view:

The Al Houthi rebels said, however, they were only defending themselves and they do not want a new war.

A few months later, no one was able to stop the ongoing war. But a new question was raised: Is it a civil war taking place in Yemen, or are there other parties participating in this war as well.

The Houthis claimed that the Saudis are participating in the on going war, and their troops are there to help the Yemeni government. The government, on the other hand, denied this. Nasser Arrabyee wrote:

A Yemeni military official denied Monday Al Houthi rebels' allegations that the army used a Saudi base to attack them.
The Saudi authorities have “allowed Yemeni army to use a Saudi base in Jabal Al Dukhan from which it launched attacks,” said Al Houthi in statement sent through emails.
The military official, who asked not to be named, said Al Houthi tries only to cover his defeats by speaking about Saudi interference. “Jabal Al Dukhan is Yemeni not Saudi lands,” he said. This is not the first time Al Houthi rebels accuse Saudi authorities of intervening in the war.

But few days later Nasser Arrabyee wrote another post in his blog:

At least 5 Saudi soldiers and 15 Al Houthi rebels were killed in fierce confrontations between the rebels and Saudi forces in Al Khuba and Jabal Al Dukhan in Jaizan area south of the Kingdom, local sources said Thursday.
The leader of the rebels Abdul Malik Al Houthi said in a statement Thursday that the Saudi army is bombarding his fighters' posts in Al Malahaid frontline far west of Sa'ada, “with all kinds of weapons”.

So the Houthi claims about a Saudi intervention were true, and that's what forced Gregory to raise the following questions:

I get the impression that the idea of wading into the muck that is the northern revolt is not something that has been well thought out in Saudi Arabia, which also gets at something else I have been asking for a while: who exactly is running Saudi Arabia's Yemen portfolio? It certainly is not Sultan. And although Muhammad bin Nayif clearly has charge of the AQ section, Saudi Arabia is not the US and is not only focused on al-Qaeda. It has a multi-faceted relationship with Yemen.
My impression is that no one individual is in charge, but that different individuals are taking turns steering the thing with little idea of where they are going besides bouncing from crisis to crisis trying to keep the crazy Yemenis and their problems from flooding across the border.

Sapphire then left a comment on Gregory's post, and tried to elaborate why Saudi Arabia decided to enter that war:

Now, why did the Saudis decide to step in with their military into Yemen? Word has it that after loosing Iraq on their northern border to the Shi'ats of Iraq, they cannot and will not tolerate another Shi'at state on their southern border too, assuming that is, that the Huthis defeat the central Yemeni government and win their independence.

The Egyptian blogger Zeinobia wasn't pleased with the Saudi intervention:

Officially Saudi Arabia has declared war on the Houthi rebels , I will not discuss if its right or not or if it a battle in a bigger regional war but I will discuss the fact that Saudi Arabia mostly will not win this war easily or hardly as it hopes with all that multi-million gadgets they have simply because this is a guerrilla war in the mountains!

She then continued:

I do not know why the Saudis are heading to the same swamp we went to in mid 1960s , of course it is an irony because they used to back up the Yemenis against us !!! In fact I read some news claiming that KSA used White phosphorus against the civilians there !! Is this a deja Vu ??!!??

But was it only the Saudis who have been involved in the war? An Iranian ship was seized near the Yemeni coasts. And that's what made Nasser Arrabyee write the following:

An Iranian ship laden with weapons believed to be on its way to Al Houthi rebels was seized on October 26th, 2009, off the coasts of the Midi harbour in the far north west of Yemen. The 6-member crew, five Iranians and Indian, are now under investigations in the Yemeni capital Sana'a. The Iranian embassy in Sana'a denied at the time that the ship was carrying weapons.

And hence Gregory wrote about a possible proxy war taking place in Yemen:

“So it is a Saudi-Iranian proxy war,” he said. (The he being: Simon Henderson, director of Gulf and energy policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington.)

The involvement of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sunnis and Shi'ats, rang a special bell in Abul Maali Fayek's head as it seems that what he was afraid of has happened:

And finally Zeinobia was wondering here if the Arab League of Nations still existed and why it wasn't taking any actions to stop this war:

I do not know if it is ironic or sad ; Arab and Muslim blood should not be spilled like this by the hands of another Arab and Muslim blood !! We are one by the end of the day.
I do not know where the role of the Arab league when you need it , Amr Moussa seems out of town , well guess out he is losing points as possible presidential candidate !!

***Also on Global Voices Online: Saudi Arabia: We'll Defend Ourselves - For The Right Reason

The Houthi rebels, named after Hussein Badreddin al Houthi, are Zaidi Shia who have been fighting the government of Yemen since June 2004, seeking greater autonomy in the north of the country where the Zaidis are a majority. Clashes between the rebels and Saudi Arabia began on November 4, with the rebels claiming they were responding to strikes by the Yemeni military from Saudi territory, and Saudi Arabia saying it was responding to incursions by the Yemeni rebels. The current conflict has affected civilians on both sides of the border, with casualties as well as large-scale displacement. Some commentators argue that this is just the most recent in a series of surrogate conflicts between Saudi Arabia (encouraged by the Yemeni government to fund anti-Zaidi Salafi groups) and Iran (accused of directly supporting the Houthi rebels), and the fear is that it may escalate into a greater regional confrontation.

Currently studying in the United States, Saudi blogger Khaled Al Ateeq is worried about the calls being made by some Saudi religious scholars, who are viewing this conflict purely in religious terms. He writes:

Khaled concludes by saying:

Maram starts by saying:

Maram goes onto to describe attending a recruitment event at Oxford University with the oil company she works for. During the event some protestors started demonstrating about what they argued the oil company had done in various parts of the world, accusing it of having acted criminally. Security guards started to remove the protestors, but a company official agreed to let them have their say for five minutes, saying that he respected their right to freedom of opinion. However, after the five minutes were up the protestors would not allow the official to continue, and kept heckling. Despite the disruption, the company official was disappointed when one of the protestors was finally carried away by force; he said that Britain was a free country and no one should be thrown out because he or she disagreed with the company's activities.

The second event that caught Maram's attention was a particular episode of the weekly BBC television programme Question Time, in which a panel of politicians and others face questions on current issues from a studio audience. Controversially, Question Time had allowed the chairman of the rightwing British National Party and Member of the European Parliament, Nick Griffin, to be part of the panel for this programme. Nick Griffin has previously been convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred.

After setting the scene, Maram describes what happened on the programme:

Saudi Arabia is gearing up for the Haj season, where millions of Muslims will converge to Mecca to perform pilgrimage. At Crossroads Arabia, John Burgess writes:

With Haj due to start in just a couple of weeks, the Saudis are really bearing down on the issue of an outbreak of swine flu. Saudi Gazette reports on a conference of Saudi medical emergency experts to make sure that plans are locked down. The article notes that residents of Mecca and Medina will be among the first Saudis to be offered swine flu vaccines. This would help to establish a sort of fire-break in the case of a rapid spread of the disease.

In Turkey, the situation isn't as acute. Turkish blogger Erkan  admits that he was more afraid of previous pandemics:

I did not have a single moment of panic, I declare. I do not know why. I was more worried with crimean congo hemorrhagic fever or bird flu.
However, there is a low level panic feeling about swine flu now here in Istanbul, too. What is promising is that many ordinary people are in fact following authorities and try to take measures as much as they could. They are not fatalistic and they sure are not as indifferent as I am.

Meanwhile, at Memories Documented, Jordanian Qwaider shares a conspiracy theory:

A friend of mine, is one of those believing in every possible conspiracy that involves pharmaceutical companies. She would argue for hours on how vaccines are bad, and how the companies are deliberately taking actions to “reduce the human population” starting with the young, the weak and the ill.

He adds:

I think people are scared, and when people get scared they create demons, and feel afraid and threatened by them. When people are afraid many stick to the norms that they are comfortable with.

But diseases might require a person to go out of their regular routine to get better…

I'm not sure, but I believe in science… I really do, and I would take the words of doctors and pharmacist over the words of any conspiracy theorists no matter how hard they tried to convince me.

And The View from Fez, from Morocco, has the following update on H1N1:

Forty-two new H1N1 cases were confirmed on Thursday in the cities of Casablanca, Tanger, Marrakech, Fès, Benslimane, Oujda and Meknès, the health ministry said.

This takes the total of confirmed cases to 592, including 297 cases in schools, the ministry said in a statement.

All the patients are receiving home care, with medical check-ups, said the ministry, adding that none of the cases is complicated. The ministry made clear that no case of death was documented in the country.

Moving on to lighter observations, Jordanian Hareega writes:

I understand how terrible H1N1 can be, but if you smoke 3 packs of cigarettes and enjoy a ginormous seder of mansaf (Jordanian rice dish) everyday don't worry much about H1N1. Something else will get you faster.

In the same post, Hareega adds:

Seven Jordanians died of H1N1 so far. Ten times that number died while watching our football team lose to UAE 3-1. We need to set our priorities straight. Before vaccinating the nation send our football players to jail.

Saudi Jeans‘ Ahmed Al Omran has little praise for the paper being accused of plagiarism:

Although al-Yaum newspaper has enjoyed a monopoly in the Eastern Province (EP) for a very long time, it remains one of the weakest publications in the country. I was born and raised in the EP, and I used to read Ashraq al-Awsat, al-Hayat and al-Watan but not al-Yaum.

Al Omran's distaste was further fueled after Saudi Aggie, a student named Nathan at the newly opened King Abdulla University of Science and Technology (KAUST) raised the alarm that the paper had used his photographs and coverage of the recent students elections. He posts a copy of the clipping from the paper and asks his readers:

I can't believe this! Look at this article that was published recently in the major Saudi Arabian newspaper, Al Yaum. Do those pictures look familiar? How about the words? If you can't read Arabic, this was taken almost verbatim from my blog post “Elections” published October 7th, 2009. This can't be legal, not even in Saudi Arabia!

The American student further adds:

If I was in the USA I would file an intellectual property rights case against Al Yaum. If it was the New York Times that plagiarized my blog I would be rich right now. Do intellectual rights to published thoughts and photos have any value here?

Al Omran notes:

Nathan is thinking about suing them, which would be awesome, but probably they have already embarrassed themselves enough.

Commentators on Nathan's blog are sympathetic to the blogger's plight.

Mazoo writes:

I'm sorry to see that happening to you ..
however , it's a common thing here in KSA :D ..

I heard about many many cases in which my friends content ( blog entries , pictures and ideas ) have been stolen by some lazy journalists. They complained about it and some wrote to the chief editor - some of them post an apology and some of them fired the person who stole the content

Al Hanouf, who describes herself as a law student,  is seeking justice:

If this action considered under a computer-related crimes , then he - the journalist - should be in jail for more than 6 months and he should pay to you not less than 250,000 SR .
You should go to a lawyer , and please don't end this by emailing the newspaper!
there is a law , and it wouldn't be able to correct the mistakes if we end the issues in our lazy way !

And Chiara advises:

I share in the revulsion for plagiarism, and the common tactic of translating and plariagizing is no better. You can copyright your whole blog as other bloggers have done, and have your name embedded on the photos.

In a follow up post, Nathan writes:

In Saudi Arabia, gossip spreads like the plague. This blog has received tens of thousands of new visitors in one week alone.

[…]

I came to Saudi Arabia to build bridges, not to make enemies. I came to study and research at a university which is striving with all of its might to be one of the best research universities in the world, not to get money from people or organizations.

I do want accountability. What Al Yaum did was wrong, but the tone of the discussion is also wrong.

And his final words to his readers are:

If you want to borrow something from my blog, please ask first. Nobody, myself included, enjoys misunderstandings.

Using a translation tool, the journalist concerned writes to Nathan stating his case.