Considering the current version of mIRC has been out for something like 6 months now and nothing has been said, it would be highly unlikely that Khaled would decide to quit now after 6 months of development on a new version, or that he quit 6 months ago and just forgot to announce it.
Take into consideration the fact that in recent posts Khaled has mentioned things like UTF-8 being 'on his todo list' and the whole thing seems much like any internet rumour: complete crap.
