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.

Ahmed Shokeir, at Late Night Stories, wrote about the absence of such kind of competitions in the Arab world and his first impressions on Arabisk:

Mohammad El Sahli, who is also known as Mohammad Said Hjouij, wrote more details about the competition rules and selection criteria:

But this competition was subject to a huge debate. And bloggers from all over the Arab world had their own comments on its rules and selections.

Aljded believes that some of the selected blogs are in fact non compliant with the competitions second rule.

And Egyptian Wael Abbas wrote:

Egyptian Nora Younis on the other hand made fun of the competition's voting system design, especially that the blog design, has got a big weight in the competition evaluation criteria:

And so did Ahmed Shokeir, who also doesn't like the competition rating criteria and the inclusion of blogs design in the evaluation:

Shokeir also wrote…

The voting system, which is the second stage of evaluation after the top 10 blogs are selected by the competition judges, was subject to a huge debate. Arabisk voting system, which is similar to that of sites like digg and reddit, gives the users the ability to give either positive or negative votes to the blogs.

But it came out later on, that some users abused the system by giving negative votes to the competing blogs.

And it was obvious that the negative voting was a huge mistake.

And competition organizers have realized that, and decided to remove and reset the negative votes.

The Egyptian bloggers were all upset from the competition nominations because almost all of the nominated blogs were non-Egyptians, while the Egyptians form about one third of the Arabic blogosphere.

Shokeir also wrote on his blog:

Also Wael Abbas, was really upset and attacked the competition.

This comment made Abo Shams reply in order to defend Arabisk saying:

Also Mohammad El Sahli, the competition organizer, wrote a seperate post on his own blog in order to defend himself and his competition:

And finally, some other blogger, like Al-Fagih, just didn't accept the fact that their blogs weren't selected, simply because they are pretty sure that their blogs are the best.

The winners will be announced on October 1.

Nathan Collier is an American postdoctoral researcher at KAUST:

The idea of the University is to be a graduate school only in sciences and mathematics. The goal is to function much like a government lab would, with directed research foci, yet have students come to be part of this also. KAUST has done a fabulous job at attracting great people to its faculty and has taken an aggressive stance to become a significant contributor to the world's scientific knowledge. There is a lot of skepticism about whether the University will succeed, but at this point these discussions are not fruitful. The point now is to work hard to make it a success and help contribute to our understanding of the way our world works.

Eric Martin, blogging at Sober Saudi, is an American master's student:

(A)s the first class of a University, there is a heavier burden of responsibility that lies on the students shoulders than there is with following classes (obviously). Traditions, formation of student government, and academic standards are just a few key responsibilities that come to mind. […] As student unions form, students settle, and classes come into maturity, there remains one balancing act left for KAUST to master; respecting the Saudi culture while simultaneously keeping the open mind that will attract scholars from around the world for years to come. One Indian friend put it bluntly, calling it a “lose-lose” situation; suggesting that if KAUST gets too liberal the nation won’t support it, but if it is too conservative it will become just another “Saudified” university. I’m still ambivalent at this point, “near-beer” in hand.

Eric attended the inauguration of the university, and was in awe:

Tonight I attended my first Royal Ball, on National Saudi Day, hosted by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (and now KAUST); King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud. The official event, the KAUST Inauguration Ceremony. I have never felt better (or cooler for that matter) being so insignificant in my entire life, if you can grasp that. There’s something special about being in the presence of a King, a REAL King. I get the idea that there are many such “Kings” in our world today, but only few actually have the power to inspire a nation. King Abdullah is one of those few. […] KAUST’s motto has always been “Through Inspiration. Discovery.” Fortunately for this Inaugural class, “Inspiration” is coming in the form of extravagant events, and until KAUST becomes yet another “Self-Inspiring” university, we can only imagine what grand act awaits us next. I’ve already put in a request for either stealing the World Cup from South Africa or bringing Michael Jackson back from the dead, whichever costs less.

Nathan, another American at KAUST, writes at Saudi Aggie:

The more I learn about King Abdullah, the more I have grown to like his policies, his savvy politics (necessary in such an ideologically diverse country), and his progressive vision for the country. The King deserves a Nobel prize for bringing us together here in Saudi Arabia from different countries and cultures to learn more about the world through science…and to learn more and build bridges between each other's cultures while we are here.

Abdullah Al-Duhailan is proud of his country’s achievement:

Ahmed Al-Omran, who blogs at Saudi Jeans, is in a reflective mood:

Last Wednesday was the 79th National Day of Saudi Arabia. […] I salute those who live by the ideals of this nation, and find the courage in themselves to stop, think and reflect, and then say: we can do better than this, we must do better that this, we are better than this. That’s why when I read that groups of young men in different parts of the country decided to celebrate the National Day by acting like hooligans, I was disturbed but not surprised or shocked. […] Although we have a great country, we are yet to construct a plural identity and make those boys realize that what they were vandalizing is actually theirs. Our national identity has been tied to individuals, tribes and religion among other things, but never to the country which we all should belong. […] At the very same moments when the hooligans were destroying storefronts in Riyadh and Khobar, a dream of our King was coming true in Thuwal. […] The launch of KAUST promises a new dawn for Saudi Arabia, the beginning of a future based on knowledge and enlightenment. That’s the promise, but will we ever come to realize it or even just come near it? How can we make sure that KAUST will not end up, in the words of Rasheed Aboulsamh, as a west coast Aramco enclave, where freedom and progressive thinking prevail while the rest of the country remains hostage to a religious dogma controlled by a select few? The celebrations of the National Day, the opening of KAUST, the acts of vandalism, and everything else that happened over the course of this past year left me with many conflicted feelings: aspiration and disappointment, hope and despair. But more than anything, this 23rd of September left me with many questions, and no answers.