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

After the match that took place in Egypt, Algerian newspapers reported that Algerians had been killed (which has been denied later on by the Algerian ambassador in Cairo). Those rumors caused several Egyptian sites in Algeria to be attacked; Egypt Air's office was damaged. More than 1,500 Egyptian workers were also reportedly attacked and taken as hostages in riots; also, the Egyptian Embassy had to be surrounded by Algerian security forces for protection.

Ihab Omar wrote in his blog El Journaljy about those rumors:

Later on, the Algerian ambassador denied that any Algerian was killed in Egypt. But as Inferad wrote in his blog, it seems that rumors and the waves of violence after them were unstoppable.

During, and after the match in Cairo, the tone of the Egyptian blogosphere was still calm. Bloggers like Nile Wise wrote, how it's just a football match, and people should not over react:

And blogs, like Inferad, believed that it was just the media in the two countries that has to be blamed. He asked people in the two countries not to believe everything they read and hear:

Meanwhile, other bloggers like Al Journaljy, admitted that there may be some violence acts that took place in each country against the fans of the other:

He then continued:

He also admitted that the Egyptian fans weren't any better than their Algerian counterparts, and that they almost did the same deeds before the match that took place in Cario.

And that's what prompted Daily Barid write the following:

In fact all the above incidents can be considered as an introduction to what happened in Sudan last Wednesday. The Egyptian and the Algerian football teams were to play there one final match in order to decide the team that will qualify for the World Cup that will be held in South Africa next year.

Some bloggers were expecting violence acts against the Egyptian fans in Sudan. And that's why Lokmet Eish called for security forces to protect the Egyptian players and fans there:

And the Sudanese did their best to secure the match with about 15,000 soldiers. But it turned out that even such a huge number of security forces was not enough. Zeinobia wrote about what happened in Khartoum in her blog:

She also wrote about the Egyptian fan who lost her eye due to this incident, and compared it to what happened 20 years ago when an Algerian football player caused another Egyptian fan to loose his eye too:

Also Bani Adam Maa Waqf El Tanfeez wrote here about what happened in Sudan. He also wrote about the videos published online that warned the Egyptians from going there, and those showing Algerian fans with knives in their hands:

He then continued:

And now it's official, the media, people in the streets, and the Egyptian government are all mad over what happened in Sudan.

Zeinobia wrote here about the reactions of Egyptian officials:

Bikya Misr, wrote about the case:

After nearly four and a half months, the Marwa el-Sherbini saga has come to a conclusion of sorts after a German court sentenced the man who stabbed the “veiled martyr” 17 times inside the court in July to life in prison without possibility of early release. Egyptians, Arabs and Germans alike have welcomed the verdict and hope Europe and the Middle East can begin to heal the wounds of the killing and move “toward a better future.”

Hicham Maged wrote about how glad he is for the ruling, and that he has real trust in the German justice system:

The judge was aware about various tricks from the killer's defence team and here I quote the words according to this article: “ He killed … not out of fear but out of revenge. He consciously exploited her innocence and defencelessness. ” I agree with this and do not forget that he also tried to kill her husband.
I am glad that the courtroom where betrayal took place has been washed up physically and morally by applying justice. Consequently, my trust in the German justice system was needless to mention because this crime was shocking for all of us not only Germans. For that matter, only today Marwa and her unborn baby can rest in peace after compensating from the killer.

Zeinobia was happy with the verdict, and she also wrote in response to those who believed that it is a political verdict, and that the German court ruled in favour of Marwa in order to please the Egyptians, and Arabs:

Now I want to say something, some racists “and they are not few in the world now”, will say that this is a political verdict ; the court had to take to win the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world and to save the German interests is the Islamic world.
Well with my all respect I said it before and will say it again; do not think of Marwa as a Muslim woman; think of her as a Pregnant woman and a mother who was brutally stabbed 18 times in front of her little boy. He killed two souls, innocent souls because of blind hate and racism. He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his life for taking the life of innocent souls and take the life of a mother from her child

Aam Mina on the other hand wrote a post, making fun of those who believe in conspiracy theories and were expecting the Germans to rule in favour of the murderer:

He then wrote about many the lessons we are supposed to learn from this incident:

Finally, Hicham Maged wrote:

What happened to Marwa should be a ‘wake-up’ call that make people work for achieving this both by criticising extreme actions taken against people because of their faith or race and understanding our differences and this simply means to quite stereotyping from whoever against whoever.

At Egyptian Chronicles, Zeinobia wrote here:

She then updated her post adding the following notes:

After the accident, it was obvious for the Egyptians that the Minister of Transportation has to resign. And even the governmental newspapers asked him to resign. Ahmed Shaltout writes:

He then wrote about the public service adverts that took place in Ramadan, and kept on attacking the Egyptian citizens as they are the ones who are careless, and destroy the Egyptian Railways Authority's assets.

People in blogs and Twitter too asked the Minister of Transportation - who is also known as Mansour Chevrolet, as he owns a company that is a Chevrolet importer and distributor - to resign:

Some even made fun of the buffalo's involvement:

While some others, asked if the minister is one to accuse or is it someone else.

And at the end the minister decided to resign as expected. And some bloggers believed that the Egyptian train accidents doesn't harm the trains passengers only, but also the Egyptian Transportation ministers are victims of their railways:

The resignation itself caused mixed reactions as some believed that he was forced to resign:

And that's why some others saw it as a charade:

For one of America's youngest presidents, in office less than nine months — and only for 12 days before the Nobel nomination deadline last February — it was an enormous honor.
The prize seems to be more for Obama's promise than for his performance.

The Egyptians reactions started with announcements on Twitter

Then some others were really astonished.

While the majority started making fun of it

Arabawy also wrote a special post about it in his blog.

The butcher of Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan) has won the Nobel Peace prize. Congratulations! [Mabrouk!] It’s a great day for world freedom. Obama, Manachem Begin, Henri Kissinger–all men who made this planet a great place to live in. Why can’t Mubarak and Habib el-Adly get it too? The message those a**holes in Norway are sending: Murder and butcher your way to Nobel.

And finally, some others had a different point of view:

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.

Thanks to microblogging site Twitter, we have a summary of mixed reactions from Egypt and the Middle-East towards Farouk Hosny's defeat. In 140 characters, Twitter users

As expected, all Egyptians should be sad because their candidate for the UNESCO was defeated. And Hanan Abdel Meguid's sad tone was so obvious in the tweet below:

And Youssra was astonished, and it seems that she wasn't expecting him to be defeated:

But wait a moment. It looks like other than the above two tweets, no one else was sad. Even Cairo-based blogger and journalist Sarah Carr wrote the following post asking people to help her find those few ones who were sad for his defeat:

In fact, it seems the no one was able to help Sarah in her search, especially that the majority of the Egyptian Twitter users were not sad at all. Ahmed El- Sadek, for example, wrote here that he can't really say that he is sad:

Zeinobia on the other hand couldn't hide the wide smile in her tweet.

Mona Eltahawy was happy too:

She even wrote another Tweet thanking God because Farouk Hosny did not win.

And Amr Salama wrote:

So, it seems that most of the Egyptians were against him. Ahmed Shoukry wrote here to clarify that if this point of view is so common among the Egyptian blogs and tweets, then it is for sure the same point of view of the majority of people on the street:

But what really makes most of the Egyptian take such stand?!

Mona Eltahawy believes that it's because Hosny is not Egypt's candidate, but he's the Egyptian regime's candidate.

The following conversation between Mostafa Hussein, and JPierre also elaborates why people didn't want him to win:

And Cairo Gem has an almost identical point of view to Mostafa Hussein's:

AlAnany believes that Hosny tried to please both the Egyptians, the Westerners and the Israelis and at the end he pleased no one:

And as usual, all our political debates have to end with a cool conspiracy theory like this one.

For more reactions on Hosny's nomination before the election read Marwa Rakha's post here.

Shokeir explains the reason behind his wish as follows:

And those he is eager to meet are:

In conclusion, Shokeir says:

Adham wrote here:

Zeinobia also wrote about the same scene here:

She then continued:

She then wondered, how are we supposed to react to a scene like this one.

Syrian Anas Qtiesh had a different point of view, and here left a comment on Zeinobia's post discussing his stand against conspiracy theories:

Jillian York also left a comment there discussing the American's point of view, and how they do not consider such thing as an insult:

And a third comment from Mido - aka Adham, wondering if censorship is really a good decision:

And finally, Will at KABOBfest wrote a post about the same scene here:

He then continues:

Traffic volume for each ADSL speed is counted on monthly basis. When this traffic/ data reach a certain limit the speed automatically drops to 128 Kbps till end of the subscription month. The speed is upgraded once more at the beginning of the new month.

And for sure the Egyptian bloggers and Twitter users were not happy with such a decision.

@Jpierre wrote here:

Also @Moodeey wrote here:

And @AmrSpace wrote here:

In fact, it may not be TE-Data only, but other ISP's are believed to start doing the same thing. @Tafatefo who is subscribed to LINKdotNET wrote the following tweet:

Twitter was almost as crowded as the Egyptian streets, but this time there were tweets during the match as well as after it. The tweets started to pour in after Egypt's first goal against Italy:

Non Egyptians and for sure Italians were there to comment on the match also.

The tweets related to the match were sufficient to bring Egypt as one of the main topics on twitter.

During the last few minutes of the match, all the Egyptians fans were not able to wait for the referee's whistle.

And finally the referee's whistle caused a real flood of tweets.

Zeinobia wrote here:

Now it was announced he was dead and he died there after an operation or even  may be in the operation room. May be he suffered from a tumor that no one noticed except when it was too late and was spread :(
It has not been announced on the Egyptian TV yet strangely,the TV is acting as if nothing has happened, may be they have not receive the orders yet .
I feel so sad for him.
May Allah bless his soul , he was just 13 years old and it is enough that he is in heaven now. My condolence to his family regardless of what I think about them.

Also Nawara wrote a blog post here about it:

Finally, nowadays, it's not enough to follow the blogs only. Twitter has got its share of reactions too.

@NoraYounis said:

Mubarak's grandson, Mohammed 13years, dies of brain hommerage!

@ShadySamir added:

Everyone. If you're against Mubarak please don't take it out on a dead 13 year old boy. This makes you worse than a tyrant.

@BentMasreya agreed:

I'm sorry for that too :( Allah yer7amouh) [May God have mercy on him].

And @tercowas said:

A child death breaks any heart :-(

By storming out of a debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and after the moderator refused to give him extra time to rebut Israeli President Shimon Peres' explanation of what happened during the Israel-Gaza conflict, Erdoğan is getting the thumbs up from bloggers.

Maher Mahmoud wrote in his blog Kelmety:

Abu El Maaly Fayek also wrote about the incident in his blog Lokmet Eish:

Zeinab - Bent Masreya - wrote another post here calling him the “leader of the world”:

And finally Ahmed Abdel Moneam wrote in his blog Tasrehat:

Also on Global Voices Online:
Turkey: Prime Minister Storms out of Davos Hearing

The Angry Arab News Service wrote:

Across five Arab states a new and closely co-ordinated campaign to boycott American goods is being launched, with Starbucks coffee shops their primary target, but with Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Burger King outlets also on the list.

Among all the American brands, Starbucks was the main target of the boycotting campaigns. Zeinobia, from Egypt, wrote about this saying:

Starbucks, the famous Starbucks branch was closed in Beirut for a day because of the protests. There are calls and actual respond to it across the Arab world to boycott the American products especially 84268245 those products associated with Israel in a way or another.

She then continued:

Of course the Arabic public is convinced that Starbucks in America gives annual donation to the IDF due to the fact that founder and the owner of Starbucks is a Jew, to be honest this is not enough to draw a conclusion that the chain donates to the IDF but news like that one makes the Arab public thinks twice.
Starbucks-IDF rumors are bit old rumours even before it opens its branches in Egypt ,it was fought in the Arab world.
I remember one day I received any email about the logo of Starbucks and its history , saying that it is the Hebrew Princess that saved the Jews in Babylonian ancient time where in reality it is another whole thing.

The boycotting campaigns were not limited to the Arab world only, and American-Palestinian group blog KABOBfest reported here how people in Malaysia are also participating in the campaigns:

Over 2,000 Muslim-owned restaurants in Malaysia have taken Coca-Cola off the menu in an effort to support global boycotts against Israel. Local organizations are encouraging employees of Coca-Cola, as well as Starbucks and other companies, to quit their jobs.

From Jordan, Khobbeizeh also wrote about boycotting Starbucks:

Howard Schultz is an active Zionist, extremely sectarian for the Israeli army. He is supporting them with hundred of millions yearly from Starbucks' income, and he's one of the major sponsors of their weaponry.

For sure, the Israeli products were boycotted by many people as well, and here is what Body on the Line wrote in her blog:

Farmers say much of their produce is being held in warehouses due to canceled orders, and fear a sharp decrease in fruit exports to countries such as Jordan, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries.
…
Ilan Eshel, director of the Organization of Fruit Growers in Israel, said Scandinavian countries have also been canceling orders.

The American blogger, who lives in Palestine, then wrote about how academics in the United Kingdom are reacting to the Israeli attack on Gaza:

British academics have written an open letter, published in the Guardian, calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions:
“We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, and not upon the criminal use of force.”
“We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.”
In London students also took action in solidarity with Gaza at the prestigious London school of economics:

More than 40 students were continuing their sit-in at the London School of Economics today in protest at the conflict in Gaza.

There are also organizations and sites that are dedicated to spreading word about the campaigns like this, this, and this one.

But on the other hand some others, like Crossroads Arabia were not that much into the boycotting:

Saudi Gazette reports that a boycott of American products in support of the people of Gaza is beginning to take hold in Saudi Arabia. As with earlier, similar boycotts, this one is likely to a) assuage Saudi feelings of impotence and b) hurt the Saudi franchisees and their employees, without actually doing much damage to the US economy, contrary to what a professor from King Abdulaziz University states.
It’s clear that the idea of a boycott has strong popular support, though.

Also Jewlicious wrote a post in reply to Khobbeizeh:

Now, I’m no big fan of Starbucks, or of Coffee for that matter, but the notion that Starbucks supports the IDF to the tune of “hundred of millions yearly” is patently ludicrous. Khobbeizeh my friend, your ample Photoshop skills aside, you are an idiot.