And here is the Supermoon

Here is the supermoon from Giza late Monday.
I had to take two batches of photos as in the first batch there were clouds all over the moon.
Here are my Supermoon's shots from Monday.

The moon before the supermoon

After a few hours later today , the world will meet what is believed to be the biggest supermoon sine the 1940s the Earth would witness.
Those photos of the moon were taken in Giza , Egypt Sunday night showing a glowing moon that has not reached its super status yet.

Kodak Agfa presents Alexandria in late spring

In May, I went to Alexandria in a short a three-day visit with my family. It was a nice spring break before the start of summer as well before Ramadan.
This is my second - somehow long trip to Alexandria from 8 years ago.

The last time I went there was a quick one-day or rather a few hours visit in 2012.

I went by train from Cairo's Ramses railway station.
It was the first time to see Egypt's first and oldest as well the main railway station after its controversial renovations.

I think you have seen those photos I took quickly while I was running to catch the train on time.

We took the first-degree train, the newest one in the service. It was better for real than the one I had taken in 2008. It got Wi-Fi Service but it was not working.

A direct trip to Alexandria, I took a couple of snaps of the Nile Delta towns and villages we passed through.

A video posted by Zeinobia (@zeinobia) on Nov 1, 2016 at 4:09am PDT

Arrived Alexandria aka Alex by Afternoon, the weather was hot, unlike springtime. I remember we had a terrible heat wave during then in Cairo.

I remember the taxi that took us from Sidi Gaber Railway station to the hotel where we stayed describing the Mediterranean sea as "Non-movable carpet" because of the heat.
We were staying in the Middle-class area of Sidi Bishr.

As someone who has not been to the city for 8 years, I noticed that many of the public beaches were closed for maintenance by none other than The Egyptian armed forces' Engineering authority. The army's Engineering also renovated the famous historical casino Cote D' Azur but it is still closed. {Once upon a time, King Farouk of Egypt used to gamble in that casino}
Also, more and more concrete ugly towers are everywhere.

And the sea was amazing in May for real. It was breathtaking and clear.

The sea in Alexandria in May 

Now in the city of God, as the Alexandrians like to call it, you will find many things that force you to take your camera or open mobile phone camera and snap !!

About that so-called 11/11 Revolution in Egypt on Friday

Supposedly after Friday's prayers which are a few hours away , a so-called revolution or protests or uprising of 11/11 will erupt against the current Egyptian regime because of its so-called economic policies.

The graffiti of the so-called revolution "Reuters" 

As usual, Downtown Cairo is locked down and famous Sadat metro station in Downtown is closed as usual. The ambulance authorities
For months , the pro-regime media has been warning the Egyptian people of participating in the 11/11 protests or so-called revolution which seemed to be an orphaned call with no political powers claiming it.
Suddenly , those calls for protests appeared from nowhere whether online or offline.
All the opposition/Pro-January 25/Pro-Democratic political powers and parties stated that they won't participate or call the people to join those protests.

Independent revolutionary activists also denied any relation with those calls appearing online and offline. At the same time,  people from the working class began to speak about.
Pro-Muslim Brotherhood supporters seemed to support the call for 11/11 protests  , they always support any calls for protests against the regime jumping into the wagon without knowing who is behind.

Same thing when it comes to the Pro-Muslim Brotherhood media from websites , Facebook pages and TV channels.
Many activists actually suspected the 11/11 revolution or protests call was a trap by the security to crackdown protests and political powers.

When Sisi congratulated Trump on the phone

After announcing that Donald Trump has become the 45th president of the United States by two hours , the Egyptian Presidency announced that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was the first leader to congratulate him in a telephone call.
During the call according to the readout released by the Egyptian presidency , Sisi invited Trump to visit Egypt. "I do not know if he visited it before".

Trump and El-Sisi in NYC last September "Egyptian Presidency" 

In return , the new US president-elect told Sisi that he was looking forward to see him soon.
It is worth to mention that Trump met El-Sisi in New York during the United Nations General Assembly "UNGA" in September.
El-Sisi was quite impressed by the Republican nominee then that he did not care much about insulting and disturbing statements about Islam and Muslims. 

It is not a secret that Trump expressed his admiration with El-Sisi and his war on 'Islamic terrorism' from his point of view.

I think this has to do with the fact that his national security ex-General Michael Flynn praises El-Sisi whether in his book or in is talks.

Also, his top expert on the Middle East and terrorism issues Walid Phares also praises El-Sisi.
Phares is too open to the Egyptian media as in the past months , he used to give statements in Pro-regime media.

On Wednesday , he told Egyptian media allegedly that Trump would issue a law designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
Yes , it is all about the Brotherhood. They do not mind having an alliance with the devil itself to get rid of the Brotherhood.

And "it" hit the fan finally !! "Updated"

And you know "it" hit the fan finally.
The Central Bank of Egypt "CBE" issued its decision early Thursday to freely float the Egyptian pound and raise the key interest rates as part of the government's economic reforms.
In its statement issued earlier , the CBE announced that it temporarily devalued the Egyptian currency by 48 percent to LE 13 to the dollar.

Taken earlier Thursday in some Egyptian bank
in Cairo "Reuters" 

It is up to the banks move the price of the dollar to within a10-percent margin above and below the above-mentioned exchange rate until the next exceptional forex auction .

Since then the prices at the Egyptian banks including the ones I know whether public sector banks or private/foreign banks between LE 13.01 to 15.99 to the dollar.
And it was a chain reaction.

Here is a copy from the Central Bank of Egypt's statement in Egypt thanks to dear Heba Mahfouz.
 It started rapidly with an increase in customs and tariffs then air flights tickets by 46%.

At 9.30 PM , media began to speak about how the prices of fuel would increase at midnight. This created a frenzy and thousands of people took their cars and headed to gas stations creating traffic jams till early Friday hours !!

Before the midnight , the prices of fuel increased officially in Egypt.

The 80-octane gasoline fuel "used by lower and lower middle classes" price increased by 46.8% while the 92-octane gasoline fuel price increased by 34.6% and diesel price increased by 30.5%.
Of course, the increase of diesel prices means the increase in the prices of food especially vegetables and fruits as they are transferred by trucks that use diesel.

A copy from the decision

And ElBaradei is speaking up about what happened in summer 2013

Recently , Egypt's former VP Mohamed ElBaradei has been very active on his twitter account criticizing directly and indirectly what is happening in Egypt. As usual , the Pro-regime media slams him spreading lies about him day and night.
There is nothing new about that but something happened on Tuesday turning the table upside down.
On Tuesday afternoon, ElBaradei issued a long statement on his official Facebook page in Arabic slamming the Pro-regime media directly and the regime indirectly.
In his statement ,the former vice-president spoke about his role starting 3 July until 14 August 2013 including his short time as the vice president of interim president Adly Mansour.
Here is the statement after the break.