Nibiru Wreaks Havoc
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Earth, Mars, and Moon in turmoil as planet of the gods approaches
The offspring of Adam and Tiamat (Eve in Genesis) were teeming in line with the wishes of Enki, their creator. Enki purposed that the Lulus “be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the Earth”, much to the horror of Enlil, the Bible’s primary Jehovah/Yahweh. Earth, after all, was their rightful planet.
It was the Anunnaki who were aliens to the planet. Enlil, however, was alarmed and perturbed: he feared that if the Lulus proliferated, they could stage an uprising at some point in time in the foreseeable future against the dismally few Anunnaki and disrupt the vital gold extraction project. The Lulus would never come to have the technological wizardry or military might of the Anunnaki but there was strength in numbers. Besides, with sympathisers amongst the ranks of Enkites, it wasn’t a stretch that the Lulus could spring a surprise.
Meanwhile, the Anunnaki royal ranks were also increasing in number. Nannar-Sin had been the first Anunnaki to be born on Earth, to Enlil and his wife Ninlil. Now Nannar-Sin himself and his wife Ningal were blessed with the fraternal twins Utu-Shamash, a boy, and Inanna-Ishtar, a girl. There were now three generations of Anunnaki royalty on Earth.
The “divine” twins, it emerged, were born at a most portendous time. At this juncture, which was 80 shars (288,000 Earth years) after the Anunnaki’s arrival on Earth, there was geophysical turmoil on Earth, Mars, the Moon, and the Asteroid Belt. On Earth, global warming was upping, the snow caps around the Arctic and Antarctica land masses were ebbing, and thunderstorms, tsunamis, and gale force winds were raging.
As if that was not chilling enough, there were earthquakes and earth tremors, with volcanic activity in overdrive, and meteors were hurtling into the planet without let-up. “Into flaming fires in the skies they were bursting,” Enki observed of the meteors and other rocky projectiles from the cosmic neighbourhood. “In a clear day darkness they were causing … Like stone missiles the Earth they were attacking.”
At the time, Marduk, Enki’s firstborn son was in charge of the Mars outpost. He reported that “strong winds are disturbing, annoying dust storms they are raising: in the Hammered Bracelet (Asteroid Belt) turmoils are occurring.” The Anunnaki top brass were in a fine state of trepidation. Enki’s second-born son Nergal and his wife Ereshkigal were working round the clock at Cape Agulhas, the astronomical, climate and Earth-monitoring station in South Africa.
At Nibruki (Nippur) in the Edin, Enlil and his firstborn son Ninurta were busy monitoring planetary orbits in our Solar System in a special-purpose facility known as the Duranki. Shamgaza, the leader of the Igigi, the Anunnaki astronauts in orbit around Earth and Mars, was burning the midnight oil superintending over the scanning of the heavens from the international space stations of both planets.
The professorial Enki, the jack of all trades as well as master of all, had suspended his life-science experiments at Bit Shimti in East Africa to devote all his energies to help unravel the conundrum at hand. What the deuce was happening in this section of the ecliptic?
DREADED MUSHOSHOSHONO LOOMS
At long last, the Anunnaki were able to fathom the cause of the climatic and terrestrial upheavals besetting our planet. Nibiru, aka “The Lord”, was on its way back to perigee, its closest orbital position to the Sun, known as the place of the crossing and of which the name Nibiru, meaning “Planet of the Crossing”, arose. This was not the first time Nibiru’s approach had triggered such cataclysms in the ecliptic but it was the most tempestuous since the Anunnaki came to Earth. “The Earth and the Moon and Lahmu (Mars) a calamity unknown are facing,” lamented Enki.
The Sumerians, the world’s best-known civilisation of old, did not call Nibiru The Lord for the fun of it: they meant what they said. For starters, Nibiru was the abode of Anu, “Our Father Who Art In Heaven”, who was the planet’s ruler and the leader of the Anunnaki in the greater Sirian-Orion empire.
Nibiru was also referred to as The Lord or The Celestial Lord because it was the “creator” of planet Earth 4 billion years ago (from the original planet Tiamat which lay between Jupiter and Mars and of which Earth and the Asteroid Belt are remnants, a phenomenon dubbed the “Celestial Battle”) as well as the primeval propagator of its life forms.
When Nibiru loomed in Old Testament times, the prophets presaged not glory and bliss but gloom and doom for poor Earthlings. The comet-like reddish planet, which is seen only once in 3600 years – the time it takes to complete one circuit around the Sun – is said to have last appeared in 556 BC (its two appearances prior to that reportedly occurred circa 4000 BC, circa 7450 BC, and circa 11000 BC.) Two hundred years before its last appearance, the Hebrew prophets began to warn the nation of Israel about its calamitous advent. The first one was Amos, who began to prophesy in Judea (southern Palestine) around 760 BC. He was followed by Hosea in Israel (northern Palestine), whose prophecies began in 750 BC.
All the prophecies were dire “beholds” regarding what was going to transpire on “The Day of Judgement”, this being the return of Nibiru to Earth’s vicinities. The return of Nibiru was described as the Day of Judgement because it was associated with every tragedy and tribulation in the book engendered by the gravitational and slingshot effects of the giant planet – floods, earthquakes, fires, meteorite plunges into Earth, volcanic activities, polar shifts, sudden climatic switches from generally warm weather to an ice age, etc. That’s why the prophet Amos would say, “Woe unto you that desire the Day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? For the Day of the Lord is darkness and no light” (AMOS 5:18).
In the 6th century BC (between the years 600 BC and 500 BC), the prophets upped the tempo as Nibiru was practically around the corner. “The Day of the Lord is at hand”, the prophet Joel frantically announced. “The Day of the Lord is near”, the prophet Obadiah declared. Circa 570 BC, about twenty-five years before Nibiru finally showed up, the prophet Ezekiel was given the following urgent divine message by the god Yahweh (that is, Enlil): “Son of Man, prophesy and say: thus sayeth the Lord: Howl and bewail for the Day is near – the Day of the Lord is near!” (EZEKIEL 30:2-3).
Whereas Nibiru and the hell it entailed were not known to much of the modern world until relatively recently when the iconic Zechariah Sitchin popularised its knowledge beginning with his 1975 classic The 12th Planet, Africans were aware of the planet. The Zulus for one called it Mushoshonono.
Says the legendary Zulu shaman Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa: “I am told by the great storytellers of our tribes, that … at one time, many thousands of years ago, a terrible star, or the kind called Mu-sho-sho-no-no, the star with a very long tail, descended very close upon our skies. It came so close that the earth turned upside down and what had become the sky became down, and what was the heavens became up. The whole world was turned upside down. The sun rose in the south and set in the north.
Then came drops of burning black stuff, like molten tar, which burned every living thing on earth that could not escape. After that came a terrible deluge of water accompanied by winds so great that they blew whole mountaintops away. And after that came huge chunks of ice bigger than any mountain and the whole world was covered with ice for many generations … And we are told that this thing is going to happen again very soon. Because the great star, which is the lava of our sun, is going to return on the day of the year of the red bull …”
What the prophets foretold about Nibiru 3000 years ago and what Credo Mutwa underscores are both affirmed in the Sumerian chronicles, both in the days of Adam and in the days of Noah. The upheavals of the time Enki relates were particularly dire in that there was a rare conjunction of seven planets from Earth to Pluto. That is to say, the seven planets had aligned and as such Nibiru’s orbital path was slightly muddled.
Consequent to that, there was a huge gap in the Asteroid Belt, the “Celestial Bar”, as some asteroids were scattered by the now erratic Nibiru. One huge comet had its path deflected by Nibiru and it pitched into the Moon, causing some of those craters we see that lend to Earth’s only satellite that famous face of a man.
And since Nibiru drew so close to the inner planets, all were agitated by its mighty gravity, resulting in the apocalyptic havoc highlighted above. The planet Venus actually moved further away from the Sun than it had been to date. Enki and company were hopeless and helpless. All they could do was invoke the “Creator of All” to tame “The Lord”.
ENKI TRAVELS TO THE MOON
Of the most telling disasters Nibiru had wrought was the destruction of the gold transhipment warehouse facilities on Mars and the space station infrastructure overall. Mars was primarily a way station where gold ingots were first shipped from Earth, stockpiled, and finally taken to Nibiru by way of the mothership. It was easier to airlift vast quantities of gold at once from Mars thanks to its less potent gravity compared to Earth. Under the prevailing circumstances, there wouldn’t be much work for Marduk to do. Accordingly, he asked to be redeployed to Earth.
Meanwhile, it was decided by Enlil, Earth’s chief executive, that gold be transported to Nibiru direct from Earth. Enki objected, arguing that that represented a daunting technological challenge in light of Earth’s rather strong gravitational pull. It would gravely affect the momentum of the flow of gold to Nibiru.
Enki therefore counter-proposed that prospects for an alternative way station on the much smaller Moon be investigated. The proposition was beamed to King Anu on Nibiru and it was okayed. So to the Moon did Enki and Marduk travel, accompanied by fifty Anunnaki. Altogether they spent six Earth years on the Moon, which was equivalent to a week in Nibiru time.
Whilst Enki was fascinated by the Moon, which he regarded as a better vantage point to study the Solar System than Earth – the reason they took six years – Marduk wasn’t. Marduk hated the fact that because of the thin atmosphere and possibly perilous solar radiation levels, they had to be garbed in a space suit all the time.
For the first time as an adult, Marduk had the opportunity to be with his dad all alone and for a lengthy time. He therefore decided to sit him down for a heart-to-heart, father-son talk. Marduk had concerns to air that stemmed from his marginalisation in Anunnaki matters when he was in fact of a very high standing in the Anunnaki cosmic pantheon. If you recall, Marduk was second in line to the Sirian-Orion throne after Enlil as per the terms of the merger between Sirius and Orion. Yet in Earthly matters, he was peripheral: he was not even among the Anunnaki’s 12-man ruling council.
Marduk had three main gripes that he brought to his father’s attention. First, he wondered why Ningishzidda seemed to be his favourite son and the only one Enki had taught practically everything he knew. Second, he wanted to know why Ninurta was given charge of Badtibira, a position of high clout since it entailed control over Nibiru-bound gold, a most strategic asset.
Third, Marduk asked why Enki had to settle for the number 2 position on Earth when it was he who established Eridu, the pioneer settlement on Earth. Why was he so meek? Why should he play second fiddle to Enlil when he was the Anunnaki Big Brain? For how long was he going to continue to offer the other cheek?
“Now to Earth we are returning; what will my task be?” Marduk sobbed before his great dad. “Am I to fame and kingship fated, or again to humiliated be?” In other words, Marduk wanted a plum position in the pantheon that was befitting of his status and potential and he wanted Enki to make that a reality come rain or shine.
Having pondered the matter over, Enki sat down to work on the zodiacal permutations. It was he who had mapped the entire celestial cycle of the zodiac 25,000 years after his arrival from Nibiru and it was he who assigned names to them. Enki now undertook to Marduk that he was going to see to it that one of these fine days he, Marduk, would be the Enlil, Earth’s Commander-in-Chief. “The supremacy I have been deprived (that is, command of the Earth) shall be yours my son. That I guarantee,” Enki rendered assurance to his dispirited firstborn son.
SHAMASH GIVEN CHARGE OF NEW SPACEPORT
Upon their return to Earth, Enki reported to Enlil that for now it was not feasible to use the Moon as a way station in that it was not sufficiently conducive to life. An underground base, a virtual subterranean world, first had to be established but that was a long-term project. Thus pending the reconstruction of warehouse facilities on Mars once Nibiru had retreated, gold should be carried directly to Nibiru from Earth.
Plans were soon afoot to establish a spaceport in the Eridu to be called Sippar. The moot point, however, was who would be in charge of the spaceport. Enlil proposed Ninurta, which was rapacious really as he already was chief administrator of Badtibira, whilst Enki rooted for Marduk, who had the requisite experience from Mars. It was a stalemate. The matter was referred to King Anu on Nibiru as happened every time opinion was divided among the Anunnaki top brass.
Although King Anu was a good man on balance, he was not without partiality. He tended to side with the Enlilites more often than not. Did that have to do with the fact that Enlil was his flesh-and-blood whereas Enki was a step son? Anu ruled that the spaceport should be commanded not by a first- or second-generation Anunnaki royal but a third-generation.
At the time, the seniormost third-generation royal Anunnaki was Utu-Shamash, Enlil’s grandson and so it was he who was entrusted responsibility. And since Marduk had refused to return to Mars, Utu-Shamash was also given command over the Igigi both on Mars and in orbit around Earth.
The construction of the Sippar spaceport began in the 81st shar and was completed in the 82nd shar. That is to say, it took 3600 Earth years. What this clearly demonstrates is that the Anunnaki followed the Nibiru timetable even whilst they were here on Earth. Had they followed Earth time, they would have been done within a year or two at most.
King Anu came down from Nibiru to commission the spaceport. On the occasion, Anu was smitten by what a staggering beauty his great granddaughter Inanna-Ishtar was. He there and then designated her as his official mistress every time he came to Earth. He christened her with the name Anunita, meaning “Anu’s Beloved”. The affair, which was legal in Anunnaki culture, was consummated on the first night. (In most cultures in Africa too, a grandfather can marry his granddaughter, but whether that extends to a great granddaughter is a contentious point.)
In his speech to a gathering of both the Anunnaki and the Igigi, King Anu gave assurance that in only a few shars, they would be back home as Nibiru’s atmosphere was on the mend. In the midst of all this though, Marduk was wroth. He refused to take any official responsibilities. Instead, he set out to globetrot the world in his flying saucer with a view to explore the planet in detail. “Over all the lands he wished to roam,” writes Enki. “In his skyship the Earth to comprehend.”
NEXT WEEK: EARTHLING TRAVELS TO “HEAVEN”
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 £18,000 (around P ¼ 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 didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s 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 Baltimore’s 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 employees’ 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 employees’ 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 employees’ 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 clients’ 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 system’s 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 – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually 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 can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
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 Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In 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.”
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. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
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:
“On 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.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, 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: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – 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 psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s 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. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ 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. 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. 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. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” 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, “I 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.”
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 “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” 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 Dodi’s apartment after the crash, 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 Repossi’s 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, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s 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. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a 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 box”.
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, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re 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).
‘The 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 one’s belief in Allah’s 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 ‘full service’. This ‘service’ 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 ‘rest’ 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 Allah’s 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: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” 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 ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s 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: “On 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: ‘I am fasting!’”
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 year’s 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 one’s 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 Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an 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.