KRU New Mosque as at 15 December 2011.

Working on the Mehrab.

Two fans at each pillar.

Covered walkway Multipurpose Hall/ Mosque proper.

Rear area. (prospective parking lots).

Waste water Treatment mini plant.

Multipurpose Hall.

Concrete fencing.

Main water intake.

Two (2) weeks more to the end of 2011 and I can safely say the New Mosque would be ready sometimes in 2012, insyaalah. My silent prayer (doa) hopefully it would be completed soonest during the first quarter of 2012.

The New Mosque and the Multipurpose Hall structure are fully completed. Sheltered walkway to connect the Multipurpose Hall and the Mosque proper is in progress.

Work on the mehrab had started. The workers are completing the washrooms and ablution area for male, female and VIP. The metered main water intake is in place. The rear parking area is taking shape, tarmac and landscaping would follow, I presume.

Whatever…………the posted shots above can tell the progress.

Should have started early.

I wish I could have started blogging at his age. BUT during my time, 60 or so years ago, there was no such thing as desktop computer or laptop.

The best that look quite similar was Typewriter and that one was considered as a luxury item. I was watching my distant Uncle typing a letter and wonder how his fingers worked without looking at the alphabet board. Later on I came to know there is a class specifically how to operate the typewriter. There is also a speed test, how fast a person can type. An employed or qualified Typist must pass the speed limit given with the number of words to be typed.

With the current desktop that I have, when I blog, I still do not master the keyboard. When I type, I still have to look at the keyboard. I have the time in the world, why bother?

The Impact of Tahrir Square.

CAIRO: The success of Islamist parties in Egypt's elections could aggravate an already serious economic crisis in the Arab world's most populous nation, analysts say.

Since an uprising in January and February that toppled the 30-year regime of Hosni Mubarak, attention has mostly focused on the political upheaval in a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring.

All the while, however, the economy has been on the slide, with violence scaring off vital holiday-makers and foreign investors choosing to place their money elsewhere.

The success of Islamist parties, including hardline fundamentalists, in the first stage of elections for a new parliament which concluded last week risks exacerbating both of these trends.

"The fall of foreign currency reserves and the decline in tourism seriously complicates the economic situation," said Samer Suleiman, economics professor at the American University of Cairo.

"The large scores of Islamist parties in the first phase of elections will make investors nervous," he added.

The biggest winner in the election was the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood movement, which won 36.6 per cent of party votes, while the ultra-conservative fundamentalist Al-Nur party picked up a surprisingly strong 24.4 per cent.

Both are committed to instituting Islamic or sharia law, and have sent conflicting signals about their approach to the economy and the tourism sector

Some of the more conservative elements speak about banning mixed-sex beaches, alcohol and even bikinis, while party leaders have sought to reassure that tourists would not be subjected to more restrictions.

Both the Brotherhood and Al-Nur held separate conferences on Sunday, seeking to stress their support for an industry estimated to employ up to one in 10 working Egyptians.

For investors, who seek a stable environment for their businesses, the uncertainty is a major deterrent.

Foreign investments are about a third this year at $2.2 billion (RM7 billion) of the $6.8 billion registered in 2010.

Mohsen Rechad, a tourist guide and owner of a small hotel here, is worried, citing comments made from some followers of the strict Salafi brand of Islam that would scare off his customers.

"This Islamist wave will have a negative impact on the tourism industry, especially if they decide to legislate against alcohol or certain clothes, especially on the coast," he said.

About 15 million tourists visited Egypt last year, bringing vital foreign currency to the country and supporting businesses in the tourist hots pots of Cairo and the Red Sea coast.

About 1,000 employees in the sector demonstrated last Friday to draw attention to their difficulties and the anti-tourist declarations of some Islamists.

As holiday-makers head elsewhere, foreign reserves in Egypt have fallen from $36 billion at the beginning of the year to $20 billion.

By February, they are projected to fall to $15 billion, a level at which it will become difficult to pay for imports such as wheat, analysts say.

Egypt is the world's biggest wheat importer, buying about 10 million tonnes a year on international markets.

The army, which has a host of business interests, announced on December 1 it had lent the central bank $1 billion from its own funds to help shore up its finances.

"The economic vulnerability of the country is immense," a Western diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The government faces complicated choices."

Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzuri said Sunday that the country's economic problems were a lot more serious than expected, partly due to mismanagement under Mubarak's regime.

He said the energy sector was deeply indebted as a result of embezzlement and said the government needed to tackle its yawning budget deficit.

Alia Mamdouh, an economic analyst at Egyptian investment bank CI Capital, forecasts economic growth for the 2011/2012 financial year will be below 2.0 per cent, less than the 3.2 per cent predicted by the government.

The slower growth rate will reduce tax revenues, widening an already gaping budget deficit that could reach 10.6 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product instead of the 8.6 per cent seen by the government, Mamdouh says.

"The economy will remain weak under this new government because of the social and political uncertainty," she says.

On top of these problems, the prices of staple goods have also increased this year, with annual inflation clocked at 9.1 per cent in November according to official figures published on Saturday.

The budget deficit and declining foreign reserves mean Egypt might once again need help from the International Monetary Fund, the lender of last resort to governments in need of financial assistance, analysts say.

An emergency loan of $3.2 billion was offered in June, but new Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said has said it was still too early to say if the government will take it.

My Comment: Egyptians had decided. The World can only watch. Insyaalah with the Islamists Law (Syariah) in place, Egypt will prosper provided the Egyptians strictly follow what stipulated in the Holy Quraan and the Hadiths of the Holy Prophet (pbuh).

Second revolution??

The return at Tahrir Square.

I posted an article on 2 February 2011 – Cairo turmoil. (You may refer to that posting). I suggested that the Egyptians should give Hosni Mubarak the chance and time frame to find a suitable replacement before kicking him off.

Now after ten (10) months, violence erupted again and perhaps another revolution. This time around, revolting against whom? The Military junta?

I am very sad what’s happening in Egypt today. I’m disgusted about the unnecessary loss of lives. Demonstration and protest does not solve the problem. The country would eventually destroy and the Egyptians themselves are the ultimate looser. The West and the Anti Islam nations would be laughing. Another Muslim country in the Middle East is collapsing.

Does any Egyptians ever ponder why it’s happening and by whose propaganda?

Hosni Mubarak had long gone. So, what more do the Egyptians want? Democracy cannot be created overnight and no country in this world can please all the citizens. Somebody got to sweep the road. If you happen to be the Road Sweeper, don’t blame the Government, blame yourself.

It is only common sense that can make a country peaceful and everybody can go out to work for a piece of bread to feed the family. If the country is in turmoil, everything would stagnate, eventually all would suffer.

Egyptians……..please come to your senses. Israel is waiting to see you destroy. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya had destroyed in front of your eyes. Let me ask you…..as an Arab and a Muslim, what have you done about it? Instead you too are destroying your own country.

Go home and don’t crowd Tahrir Square. The pyramids happen to be in your country and tourists just flooding in to upgrade the economy.

I have been to Egypt twice (2X) and really admire the magnificent Pyramids and the beauty of the Mediterranean at Alexandria. The Egyptians had banished the monarchy but His Majesty majestic Palace still being maintained at Alexandria for the Egyptians and the foreign tourists to admire the legend of your monarchy. Your civilization dated back to 2750 BC when the first pyramid was built.

Just like Saudi Arabia, Egypt too do not have to campaign to the world for tourists to flock into your country. Foreign tourists just want to see with their own eyes the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Luxor Valley, beautiful architectural Mosques, the Nile and perhaps your belly dancers.

2011 + 2750 years, by now the Egyptians should learn to love the country. To those Egyptians who currently live on Cemeteries in Cairo, the Nile is lengthy enough for you to cultivate. Get out from Cairo and find the best fertile riverbed. In the Holy Koran, Allah would bless those who “hijrah: to seek a better living.

Hijrah – the migration of one place to another for the betterment.

IAEA & IRAN.

Whose atomic energy agency is it, anyway?

By RAMESH THAKUR

CANBERRA — The new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, published Nov. 8, is both preposterous and dispiriting. Preposterous, because the IAEA has reinterpreted "old" facts instead of presenting new evidence. Dispiriting, because the reinterpretation may feed the growing punish-and -bomb Iran frenzy.

In an old Cold War joke, Ronald Reagan and Leonid Brezhnev compete in a two-man race. The Soviet media reports on the results thus: "In an international athletics competition, Comrade Brezhnev came in second; President Reagan was second to last". Technically correct, but a deliberately false representation of the truth.

Similarly, using the same evidence, Mohamed ElBaradei's reports concluded there was no conclusive proof Iran had crossed the weapons threshold. His successor Yukio Amano concludes there is no conclusive proof that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and he "has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

The five NPT-licit nuclear powers have subverted the Non-Proliferation Treaty from a nuclear prohibition into a nonproliferation regime. The only authority for enforcing NPT obligations is the U.N. Security Council. The IAEA is the U.N.'s technical but neutral nuclear watchdog. Nobel Peace laureate ElBaradei successfully protected IAEA independence and credibility during the 2002-03 crisis over Iraq. Washington failed to thwart his reappointment.

When the time came for ElBaradei to leave the IAEA in 2009, Amano was Washington's choice because, according to a U.S. embassy cable, he was believed to be "solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision," including Iran.

Iran has the legal right to enrich uranium. It might have an interest in doing so for weapons-related purposes precisely because it lives in a particularly threatening environment that includes five nuclear-armed states (Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia, China). American ground troops are deployed in large numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. warships ply the seas around Iran. Britain and the U.S. have intervened repeatedly in Iran and have a record of almost unbroken bellicose rhetoric against the Islamic republic.

During the eight-year war (1980-88), the international community refused to help Iran as the victim of Iraq's aggression, including with chemical weapons. In 2003, a disarmed Saddam Hussein was attacked by a U.S.-led coalition. This year, a nuclear-disarmed Libya was attacked by NATO; a nuclear North Korea has not been attacked.

Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. The nuclear program has been subjected to cyber-attacks by the Stuxnet computer virus. Iran may be paranoid, but it does have real enemies.

Given this history, geography and strategic realities, in the absence of either a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone that includes Israel or universal nuclear disarmament, the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran is probably irreversible. But there is no firm evidence that it has actually tipped over into weapons production.

The new report lists efforts by Iran's military to procure nuclear-related and dual-use material and equipment; to develop ways and means of producing undeclared nuclear material; to tap into clandestine networks for obtaining weapons-related information and documentation; and to work on an indigenous nuclear weapons design. Importantly, however, all these activities took place before 2003. There is no fresh revelation. Even the pre-2003 assessment referred to weapons-relevant research by Iranian scientists, not to constructing a bomb factory. Hence the startlingly wishy-washy conclusion: there are "indications that some activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device continued after 2003, and that some may still be ongoing."

Iran today can no more prove a negative — that it does not have hidden proliferation activities — than could Iraq in 2003. According to the consensus view of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies first stated in 2007 and repeated this year, Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and has not restarted it. Earlier this year, ElBaradei insisted that Iran does not constitute "a clear and present danger." There is not "a shred of evidence" that it is actually weaponizing, he said, as opposed to positioning itself to be able to do so at a later date.

The world's dilemma is that it would be virtually impossible to take any effective action after the fact. But it is not clear what can be done before the fact either. Given the economic malaise afflicting the West, imposing sanctions on Iran would be self-damaging.

There is much to admire about Israel, including chutzpah, as an NPT-illicit nuclear power, of demanding that Iran be forcibly prevented from acquiring the bomb. Israel is no more hypocritical than the NPT-licit 5. Israel's attack on Iraq's reactor in 1981, far from destroying an existing capability, spurred Saddam Hussein into the search for a weapons-of-mass-destruction capability. Accepting that Iran has been building technical and material capacity to weaponize, threats of military action will probably strengthen the hawks in Tehran who want to get as many bombs as quickly as possible.

The creeping politicization of the IAEA is provoking a backlash. In September 2010, the 117-strong NAM (Nonaligned Movement) expressed concerns at Amano's "departure from standard verification language". The NAM countries were unhappy also with the uncritical acceptance of self-servingly selective Western-sourced intelligence on Iran's nuclear activities.

In 2003, facts and intelligence were fixed to justify the pre-determined decision to go to war. But at least Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, and ElBaradei held firm on their respective institutional integrity. Now Amano is turning the IAEA into an instrument for justifying aggression against Iran. Also reminiscent of 2003, his report relies on innuendo and insinuation rather than verifiable evidence and facts.

The drumbeats of war are gathering strength once again. As with Iraq, the justification is unpersuasive, the risks of wider unintended consequences are grave, and the moral authority of those seeking to go on the attack is suspect.

In time, this report may rebound on the IAEA itself and discredit it as an impartial agency serving the international community.

The real policy challenge is how to keep Iran this side of weaponization and integrate it into the wider Middle East security architecture as a nuclear-capable but not nuclear-armed country.