The Anunnakis Best Kept Secret!
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
They used gold to lengthen their lifespan!
According to the Sumerian records, the Anunnaki, the Old Testament gods, came to Earth from their planet Nibiru to prospect for and extract gold. Nibiru, so the story goes, was faced with an ozone depletion crisis (something Earth is experiencing in our day) and gold, an already exhausted commodity on their planet, was needed to plug the hole.
Although the Old Testament does not squarely hit the nail right on the head as regards the reason the Anunnaki (who are referred to as the Elohim or the Nephilim in Genesis in the original Hebrew), it does provide a sliver of a hint. Gold is the first metal to be mentioned in the Bible. GENESIS 2:10-11 reads, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first was the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold and the gold of that land is good …”
But was the plugging of the ozone hole the only reason the Anunnaki sought gold on our planet? The one thing we have to bear in mind is that the Anunnaki didn’t confide every secret to mankind. There was certain, privileged knowledge they held to themselves. Only a few, elite humans were made privy to this knowledge and these had to be members of the Anunnaki-founded secret societies. One such secret society was the Brotherhood of the Snake.
This was founded by Enki, though it was in due course infiltrated and corrupted by the Enlilites. The other was the Brotherhood of Gold. This was founded by Enlil, the primary Jehovah/Yahweh of the Old Testament. The Brotherhood of Gold was formed with a view to protect the secrets of the uses of gold and what are called the Platinum Metals. What was one of these secrets? It was that ingesting gold extended the lives of the Anunnaki both whilst they were on Earth and even on their own planet Nibiru.
BORN TO AGE
Everything in this world ages. Humans, creatures, plants, pathogens – they all grow old with the passage of time. All phenomena ages. Rocks, planets, stars, and other cosmic bodies do age too. Yet living things do not age at the same rate. Some organisms age faster than others and therefore die quicker. Cancer cells for one are capable of living forever! Even in one particular organism, such as a human being for example, specialised cells do not age at the pace.
Stomach-lining cells, for example, die every 5 days (by virtue of being exposed to hydrochloric acid, a permanent feature in the stomach pit), whereas cells of the intestinal tract live up to 15 years before they die. The red blood cells have an average lifespan of 4 months. Yet the entire body can keep chugging for up to 70 years simply because as these cells die, they are replaced by newly-born cells and the dying-replenishment cycle continues on and on.
Overall, however, our body deteriorates as we age since gradually, the rate of dying cells outpaces the rate of new cells being born. Some cells, in fact, no longer regenerate at all at some stage: they simply die off. A good example are pigment cells in our hair follicles. In most people and in particular race groups, pigment cells die by age 40, giving rise to permanent grey, silver, or white hair.
In my case, I have been using tint since age 30, a rather untimely crossroads at which my pigment cells began to die – a “curse” I inherited from my father. Thankfully though, I inherited a blessing from my relatively evergreen mum that makes me look considerably younger than most people of my age and younger still than my immediate younger sister and the brother who follows her. That’s yet another conundrum of life: we do not fade at the same rate even though we may be of the same age bracket.
FACTORS THAT DETERMINE AGING: GENETICS
Why do we age? Or rather, why do we as Earthlings age at the rate we do, which is blindingly quicker than the Anunnaki do? There are a number of factors but here we will only address the key ones. First, it has to do with genetic instructions in our DNA. As we discussed at reasonable length at some stage, DNA is like a computer programme, only a more advanced and sophisticated one by far. It has a designer who invented it (Lucifer in the case of every inhabitant of this universe) and tinkerers who gain mastery of it and thus are able to manipulate it to bring about a contrived outcome.
In our case, it was the Anunnaki who tinkered with our DNA when we were at Homo Erectus stage and encoded our age. In fact, the Anunnaki progressively reduced our lifespan, from about 70,000 years in the case of Adam/Adapa to the current threescore and ten on average (it has actually fluctuated since the days of Abraham).
Abraham lived for 175 years. In New Testament times, life expectancy was 45 years, so that when you were 30, you were regarded as a senior citizen! Only 4 percent reached the age of 65. By 1786, life expectancy had plunged to only 24 years. In 1886, it doubled to 48. Today, it is at 76. If you are programmed to die at a particular age, there is nothing you can do: you just have to go at that “appointed time”, finito. True, you can live beyond the average (Robert Gabriel Mugabe is 92; David Rockefeller, a Reptilian, is 100, albeit after 9 heart transplants; the Queen of England, another Lizard, is 90; Mandela died at 95) but that is simply within the margin of error.
The other factor has to do with heredity. Some people live comparatively longer thanks to the longevity genes passed to them by their forefathers. If you look at the ages of the earlier biblical patriarchs such as Adapa, Enoch, and Methuselah, you find that they lived for thousands of years (the ages shown in Genesis are not literal; they are multipliers, something we shall expand upon in due course), the reason being that they all had a considerable component of Anunnaki blood in them.
Sometime this year, I had occasion to chat with former Vice President Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe, now in his 70s. He told me that he comes from a family who live atypically long. He cited one uncle of his who is 114, walks straight, sees without the aid of glasses, and has virtually intact mental faculties. A further reason we age has to do with what are known as telomeres. The human body houses up to 100 trillion cells.
The greater majority of these cells divide into one or more cells at certain intervals at a pre-determined genetic time table; that’s how we grow and that’s how the body’s metabolic processes are sustained. Sadly, the vast majority of cells have a limited lifespan. On average, they can divide up to a maximum of 52 times. Once they stop dividing (that is, retire), we become susceptible to disease, infection, malfunctioning, and death.
What puts a stop to the dividing process? Each cell has 92 internal clocks – one at each end of its 46 chromosomes. These are called telomeres. Think of telomeres as the plastic caps at the ends of shoelaces, the tips or tails of a chromosome. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter and shorter till finally they shrink to a critical minimum size. At this stage, the cell takes notice and stops diving.
The telomere tip is made up of an enzyme called telomerase. It is telomerase which sustains telomeres and therefore protects the cell from fraying. As cells renew themselves over the years, the telomerase enzyme wears away: consequently the cells degrade and aging accelerates. One expert explained the phenomenon this way: “Compare the telomeres to the white margin surrounding an important type-written document.
In this analogy, the printed text is the vital DNA code while the white space is the ‘blank’ telomeres. Imagine that this paper is repeatedly slapped on a copy machine, a copy is made, and then that copy is used to make another copy. Each time the paper is copied, it is subject to errors of alignment and these errors accumulate with every copy. After enough copying, it is probable that the white space will diminish and some of the actual text will not be copied. That's what happens inside our cells and it is the reason we get old and die.”
FACTORS THAT DETERMINE AGING: PLANETARY CYCLES AND OXYGEN
A little-known determinant of age is the time the planet takes to complete its journey around the Sun, what we call a year. We will cite only four planets. One year on Venus takes 0.615 Earth years. Mars takes approximately 2 Earth years to revolve around the Sun; Neptune approximately 165 Earth years; and Nibiru 3600 Earth years. Let’s use our charismatic Republican President General Seretse Khama as an example. He is 63.
To calculate what age he would be on other planets, all we simply do is divide his age by the number of Earth years that particular planet takes to go around the Sun. Accordingly, his age on Venus would be 63/0.615, or 102 years. On Mars, he would be 32 years. Similarly, on Neptune he would be 0.38 years old, that is, a very small baby. On Nibiru, he would be 0.02 years, meaning he would still be at embryonic stage. In sum, the quicker a planet takes to go round the Sun, the faster its inhabitants grow.
On the other hand, the longer the planet takes to revolve around the Sun, the slower its inhabitants age. We can now understand why the Anunnaki lived far much longer than we do on their planet but aged much more rapidly when they came to Earth, although still slower than mankind. Another accelerator of age is the very element central to our survival – oxygen. In this way, it is much like the Sun, which is essential to life but can also destroy life with its cancer-causing ultra-violet rays. In her book, Freedom From Disease, Hari Sharma explains rather succinctly the horrors of oxygen. Let’s hear her speak:
“Oxygen, the atmospheric source of life, is also a source of degeneration, disease and, ultimately, death. We live surrounded by and suffused with oxygen. We take it completely for granted, walk through it thoughtlessly, breathe it in, sometimes greedily. Now, as if we suddenly discovered that water kills fish, we have discovered that oxygen kills cells, tissues, and, eventually, the entire body.
“The two-edged nature of oxygen is known as the oxygen paradox. On the one hand, oxygen bestows life-giving energy. Without oxygen a living cell can still extract energy from glucose molecules through anaerobic metabolism (anaerobic means ‘without air,’ or, more precisely, ‘not in the presence of oxygen’). With oxygen, however, the body can extract sixteen times as much energy from the same number of glucose molecules. Given the energy demands on the human system, the difference is life and death.
“Neurons in the brain are especially energy sensitive, and even minutes of oxygen starvation lead to rapid neuron death. On the other hand, as a moment’s reflection reveals, oxygen is extremely corrosive. A fine new automobile, left to the mercies of oxygen, will eventually rust down to a pile of dust. Oxygen, if given the chance, destroys the molecular components of the body just as surely as it rusts metal and burns buildings. At its most destructive, oxygen combines with hydrogen into various unstable and highly reactive free radical molecules, as well as other reactive oxygen species (ROS).
In these virulent forms, oxygen will systematically destroy a cell’s DNA, enzymes, proteins, and membranes, unless the body’s defenses keep the attack in check. “This is the dark side of oxygen. Seen from the most extreme point of view, in fact, oxygen is a poison gas. Anyone who breathes pure oxygen for 48 hours will die, a victim of oxygen’s damage to the tissues of the lung. Living in the earth’s atmosphere, we continue to survive only because inert nitrogen dilutes oxygen down to 20% of the air we breathe and the body has developed coping mechanisms to counter oxygen’s destructive effects at levels this low.
“Our use of oxygen is thus a Faustian bargain, life-giving boon with a lethal curse attached. Oxygen powers the chemical reactions that provide energy for motion, sensation, and thought for all that makes possible animal and human life on this planet. But the oxygen that saturates our cells is also a constant threat to our survival. It mounts a relentless attack that eventually wears down our defenses and destroys our biological machinery.
The body gets old because, in large part, oxygen wastes it away. The body suffers from a heart attack, or a stroke, or an outbreak of cancer because, in large part, oxygen has done its damage. “Oxygen gives life, and oxygen takes it away.”
FAMILIAR USES OF GOLD
Let us now return to gold, the most cherished of all metals. Most of its uses we’re familiar with. Let’s sum them up. Nearly 80 percent of all recycled or mined gold is used in the manufacture of jewellery. For over 6000 years (that is, dating back to the Sumerian days), gold has been used as a store of value, as itself (alongside silver) or as a medium of exchange. Gold coins, first minted in about 560 BC by King Croesus of Lydia in today’s Turkey, were commonly used in transactions until the early 1900s when paper currency was introduced.
In fact, all paper money was backed by gold held in safekeeping for every unit of money that was placed in circulation. The gold was held in the form of gold bars, also known as "gold bullion”. Until the onset of the 70s, most countries in the world used god as a standard to back every unit of currency in circulation.
The most important industrial use of gold is in the manufacture of electronics. As a conductor of heat and electricity, gold is third to diamonds and silver. As a highly efficient conductor, gold can carry these tiny currents and remain free of corrosion. Thus a small amount of gold is used in almost every sophisticated electronic device. This includes cell phones, calculators, global positioning system (GPS) units, television sets, and desktop and laptop computers.
Gold has many uses in the production of glass. The most basic use in glassmaking is that of a pigment. A small amount of gold, if suspended in the glass when it is annealed, will produce a rich ruby colour. Gold is also used when making specialty glass for climate-controlled buildings and cases. A small amount of gold dispersed within the glass or coated onto the glass surface will reflect solar radiation outward, helping the buildings stay cool in the summer, and reflect internal heat inward, helping them stay warm in winter.
In dentistry, gold alloys are used for fillings, crowns, bridges, and orthodontic appliances. Gold is also critical in aerospace technology. Space vehicles are fitted with gold-coated polyester film to reflect infrared radiation and to help stabilize core temperatures. Without gold, darker coloured parts of spacecraft would absorb significant amounts of heat. The visor on the helmet of an astronaut's space suit is coated with a very thin film of gold. This thin film reflects much of the very intense solar radiation of space, protecting the astronaut's eyes and skin.
Finally, gold is used as a lubricant (in place of oil) between mechanical parts in the vacuum of space. But as we pointed out above, the Anunnaki had classified uses for gold that had to do with human physiology. We delve into these in detail in the next instalment.
NEXT TIME: THE ELIXIR OF LIFE!
Columns
GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device).  But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over ÂŁ18,000 (around P ÂŒ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didnât even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the companyâs payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli.  As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimoreâs computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants  but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employeesâ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employeesâ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employeesâ productivity.  Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clientsâ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a systemâs data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase,  predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing â the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise –  whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data âusernames, passwords, credit card details âusually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You canât put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
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âI Propose to Diana Tonightâ
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams  had a sudden premonition that pointed to Dianaâs imminent fate as per Christopher Andersenâs book The Day Diana Died. âWhen the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,â Williams was later to reminisce. âIn the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.â
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. âI have never seen him so upset,â Mary recounted. âHe felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.â
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
âOn 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.â
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, Â even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: âIn The Independent Diana was described as âa woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anythingâ. She was âsuffering from a form of arrested developmentâ. âIsnât it time she started using her head?â asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled âA Story of Loveâ; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: âWilliam canât help it, he just doesnât like the man.â William was reportedly âhorrifiedâ and âdoesnât think Mr Fayed is good for his motherâ â or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatristâs chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana âOn the Couchâ, asking why she was so âdepressedâ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications â about Prince Philipâs hostility to the relationship, Dianaâs prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.â
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodiâs bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. âWell, eventually we will be going out to a restaurantâ, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleaguesâ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. Â The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Â Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General,  was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him  in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. âBut Diana, remember what I told Dodi,â Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, âYes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.â Well,  she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, âI have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.â
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE âTELL ME YESâ RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the âTell Me Yesâ engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome.  It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law,  had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco  and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction.  Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi  did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It  may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious  choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodiâs apartment after the crash, Â has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossiâs sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Â Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodiâs apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. âDodi came into my kitchen,â Delorm relates. âHe looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldnât hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box ⊠He said, âRene, Iâm going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinnerâ.â Rene described the ring as âa spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet boxâ.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz  that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodiâs dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. âThey called me and said weâre coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
âThe month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of oneâs belief in Allahâs oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a âfull serviceâ. This âserviceâ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ârestâ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allahâs commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: âAll actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.â We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a âproperâ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of oneâs feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: âOn a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: âI am fasting!ââ
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one yearâs end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich oneâs conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allahâs pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a âseason of worship.â Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qurâan more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.