Jehovah Turns Up Heat
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Disease, starvation plague mankind as Enlil unleashes wrath in bid to teach Marduk “a lesson”
About 75,000 years ago, in the time of Enoch, a new Ice Age dawned on Earth. It did not hit abruptly: it was gradual. About 25,000 years later, it was biting hard. Earthlings and Anunnaki alike were reeling from it. Enki characterises this dire situation thus courtesy of Zechariah Sitchin’s The Lost Book of Enki: “In those days the Anunnaki for their own surviving were concerned; their own rations were diminished, by Earth's changes they themselves afflicted became … The tribulations were increasing, fear and famine their heads reared.”
By this time, Enoch had spawned two generations. They were that of his son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech. Now, although Enoch lived in luxury in a facility hollowed out of a mountain at Sippar in the Edin, Eden in the Bible, he kept regular touch with his family directly and was well-attuned with happenings around him. He may have had a sheltered life but he was concerned about the welfare of his family under the prevailing climatic circumstances. Their fate so exercised his mind they were always in his prayers.
As he obsessively contemplated the wellbeing of his family, he had a “vision” in which he saw a mighty flood inundate the Earth. What were these so-called visions that are such a constant feature in the Bible and the Sumerian records? One cannot say for sure since they are not explained, but the impression one gets is that of something like a movie which is shown not on a screen but holographically in the surrounding air in a dark setting. Who was behind this hologram? On the basis of what would later transpire, it was Enki himself.
For just after he had this vision, Enoch sent for Enki. Why Enki when he, Enoch, was a protégé of the Enlilites? The reason is simple: Enoch knew that if the globalwide flood was an avoidable catastrophe, it was Enki who could do his utmost to avert it, not Enlil. Enki was mankind’s creator and therefore had a heart for humans. On the other hand, Enlil regarded mankind as expendable. To him, humans were like roaches crawling all over the place and who therefore had to be Doom-sprayed into oblivion. If Enoch loyally served the Enlilites, it was by virtue simply of the privilege they had made possible for him – of settling on Nibiru and living happily ever after Amen.
Enki made haste to Enoch’s redoubt. Enoch recounted the vision to him along the following lines:
“What I saw in the vision Lord Enki could or could not happen but whatever the case, we ought to make a contingency plan. And for that I’m counting on you. If the flood were to take place soon, I personally would be flown to Nibiru but what about my children and grandchildren? They would perish. And you know as much as I do Lord Enki that your brother Lord Enlil wouldn’t care an iota about them. Only you, Benevolent Lord, has a heart for mankind.”
Even as Enoch was speaking, the quick-thinking Enki, who had the sharpest brain of any Anunnaki, was already weighing several options. From the satellite pictures provided by the Igigi who were in orbit around Earth, Enki did detect that the mountain of ice that had built up on the continent of Antarctica was a disaster waiting to happen. If Nibiru were to draw too close to Earth than it ordinarily did, the colossal ice sheet would tip over into the Antarctic Ocean, giving rise to a globalwide Tsunami capable of extincting life on the planet.
Enki thus resolved that Nibiru’s trajectory had to be watched very closely. The mathematics of its orbital positions had to be scrupulously calculated so that precise predictions on its impact on the planet could be made at least a shar in advance. Meanwhile, Enoch and he came up with a strategic plan in which Enki’s role was both primary and salivating as it involved bumping and grinding – the kind of action Enki relished greatly.
LAMECH’S STRANGE SON
Like his grandfather Enoch, Lamech was an Enlilite lapdog. He was based at Sippar, Utu-Shamash’s cult city, where he was known as Ubar-Utu, meaning “Utu’s Understudy/Intercessor”. In other words, he ruled the human residents of Sippar on behalf of Shamash. In short, Lamech was Sippar’s priest-king.
An occupational specialty of Lamech was architecture. He was simply outstanding in infrastructural design. Enki thus used this forte of his as an excuse to get him to Egypt, where he was presently based. Enoch was hired by Enki to teach humans the art of design and construction. Of course Enki himself, who the Egyptians called Ptah – meaning “Creator/Developer”, and his phenomenally gifted son Ningishizidda could easily have done this but the idea of roping in Lamech was a clever means to a strategic end.
Lamech was married to his cousin Batanash. But whilst fulfilling his contract with Enki, he had left Batanash with Ninmah at Shuruppak. Not long after Lamech arrived in Egypt, Enki decided to pay a visit on Ninmah. It so happened that one day, Batanash, a staggering beautiful and curvaceous woman, was taking a shower in a roof-top bathroom and Enki was peeking at her through a window to his bedroom. Enki’s bedroom was on a floor that was one storey higher than the level at which Batanash was bathing and since the bathroom was roofless though walled, Enki saw every inch of her and all her eye-popping postures as she tried to spruce up every contour of her body. Blood flowed to Enki’s nether regions – he was in bonking mood.
Soon he had made his way into the hallowed privacy of Batanash’s cubicle and according to Sumerian records, “his semen into her womb he poured”. No woman on Earth was capable of turning down the advances of Enki, whose way with words coupled with dynamically good looks they found irresistible. Besides, Sumerian records suggest that Enoch had conjugally neglected his wife, like most men do when they have been with a woman for a long time. Note that the copulation only partially stemmed from lust: Enki and Enoch had planned it all.
Enki, a most virile man who hardly ever fired blanks, had scored with his first attempt at goal. Nine months later, Batanash had a child, a boy. Since the boy looked somewhat unusual, Ninmah radioed Lamech to rush to Shurrupak pronto. The moment Lamech set his eyes on the boy, he was stunned.
“White as the snow his skin was, the colour of wool was his hair: like the skies were his eyes, in a brilliance were his eyes shining,” says The Lost Book of Enki. In other words, the child resembled the typical Anunnaki, who were of a chalky-white skin, had blue eyes, and “shone” thanks to their ingestion of Ormus on a daily basis. As if that was not strange enough, the child was able to talk from the moment he was born. “He arose in the hands of the midwife, opened his mouth, and conversed with the Lord of Righteousness,” the latter being Enlil, who had also been invited over by Ninmah to come and see this extraordinary little bundle of joy.
STRANGE SON BOTH A BAD AND GOOD OMEN
The first thing Lamech did was to confront his wife. According to a fragment of The Book of Noah, found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls stash, Lamech related thus about his plight:
“I thought in my heart that the conception was from one of the Watchers, one of the Holy Ones … And my heart was changed within me because of the child. Then I, Lamech, hastened and went to Bath-Enosh, my wife, and I said to her: ‘I want you to take an oath by the Most High, the Lord Supreme, the King of all the worlds, the ruler of the Sons of Heaven, that you will tell me the truth whether …’”.
Lamech suspected that Batanash was impregnated by a Nefilim and made her swear by King Anu that that indeed was the case as the child clearly did not have strictly human features. First, Batanash responded in a round-about way but with some subtle signal. She said, “The situation is indeed alarming but remember my delicate feelings”. In other words, she was saying that whilst she understood his concern, he nonetheless had to bear in mind that he had been starving her sexually.
The evasive answer did not satisfy Lamech so he pressed on: he said he wanted the full truth and nothing but the truth. This time around, Batanash was more direct. “Ignoring my delicate feelings, I swear to you by the Holy and Great One, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, that this seed came from you, this conception was by you, and this fruit was planted by you,” she vowed.
The emphasis on “delicate feelings” perturbed Lamech. It was inconsistent with the notion of the child indeed being categorically his. Lamech thus took off in a fit of anger and frustration to seek the advice of his father Methuselah. This is what he reported: “I have begotten a strange son, diverse from and unlike Man, and resembling the sons of the God of Heaven; and his nature is different, and he is not like us … And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me but from the angels.” The terms “sons of the God of Heaven” and “Angels” refer to the Anunnaki, who were indeed Nibiru King Anu’s people.
Methuselah too was dumbfounded but he didn’t say much; instead, he referred Lamech to his grandfather Enoch. Enoch was to conduct a DNA test on the baby and if he found that indeed the baby was fathered by a Nefilim, he was to investigate who exactly it was. Methuselah knew that Enoch, being the head of the Enlilite’s equivalent of the CIA, would easily find out who had committed adultery with Batanash. Certainly, Enoch must have had a Anunnaki DNA database at his disposal.
Lamech rushed to Sippar in a chopper accompanied by Anunnaki escorts who knew exactly where Enoch lived in a “dwelling place among the angels at the ends of the Earth”. However, he was not allowed to enter the premises. Instead, Enoch came out to meet him. After relating the object of his calling, Enoch, who had masterminded everything along with Enki, pacified him straightaway. He said there was no need to conduct a DNA test on the baby as he indeed was Lamech’s.
But the baby was certainly special. His unusual appearance and precocity (talking straight after birth) betokened an omen of sorts. “There shall come a Deluge and great destruction for one year, but your son and his family are destined to be saved. The Lord has showed me and informed me, and I have read it in the heavenly tablets.”
Having said this, Enoch enjoined Lamech to keep the secret to himself, an admonition he inviolably honoured. Thus it was that Batanash gave the child the name Atrahasis, meaning “extremely wise.” This had to do with the fact that the child could speak from the day he was born and sensibly so, unlike ordinary babies who verbally matured through the gears. In future, Atrahasis would come to be best-known as Ziusudra (in Sumerian) or Utnapishtim (in Akkadian, the forerunner to the Hebrew language). Both the terms mean “He of long bright life days”, which was very fitting as it was Atrahasis who preserved life during that watery calamity and so ushered in a bright new day.
In the Bible, Atrahasis is known as Noah. This is from the Hebrew Noach, meaning “comfort”. Again this is apt in view of the fact that his birth heralded good tidings on the flipside of the coin: he was to be the saviour of mankind and all life forms as the Deluge raged.
Noah was born in the 110th shar, that is, 396,000 years after the Anunnaki first landed on Earth. That is roughly 49,000 years ago and about 12 shars (43,200 years) before the Deluge.
The moment Enki heard of his birth, he offered himself as his godfather and Lamech, who was unaware that the boy was in fact Enki’s son, gladly obliged him. From a very early age, Enki set out to groom him as his priest and recited to him the writings of his iconic forefather Adapa, who had been dead now for 7000 years.
Noah grasped whatever Enki taught him like a dictaphone, that’s how brilliant he was. However, Ninmah insisted she also wanted a piece of the child prodigy and Enki co-operated: Noah was raised at Shuruppak, the Anunnaki medical centre that was under the patronage of Ninmah.
ENLIL’S MACABRE STRATEGY NO. 1: PANDEMICS
Meanwhile, Enlil was very intent at decimating the population of the Nefilim, their Anakim offspring, and mankind for their brazen pro-Marduk stance. Since Enki and Enoch withheld their forecast of the Deluge from him, Enlil decided to take rash measures to bring about the disaster he desired.
The first weapon he used was the infliction of disease. “In the days of Ziusudra plagues and pestilences the Earth afflicted, aches dizziness, chills, fevers the Earthlings overwhelmed,” relates Enki in The Lost Book of Enki. These travails may have been simply one of the ravages of the Ice Age Enlil decided to capitalise on, but chemical and biological weaponry did certainly play its part too. In the face of this pathological calamity, Ninmah, who physically incubated Adam, the father of mankind, approached Enlil and suggested that humans be taught the art of curing themselves using herbaceous plants. But Enlil was having none of that. “This by decree I forbid”, he thundered.
Next to plead for an easing of the human predicament was Noah, who was now a grown man. He approached Enki and besought him to reason with his all-powerful step-brother. “Ea (Enki), O’ Lord, mankind groans,” Noah entreated. “The anger of the gods consumes the land. Yet it is thou who hast created us! Let there cease the aches, the dizziness, the chills, the fever!" Enki did find a way to circumvent Enlil’s decree and answer to mankind’s plight but whatever course of action that was we can only guess since the Sumerian tablet on which the story is related is partly damaged. The action plan was effective though because Enlil is later heard to complain that, “The people have not diminished; they are more numerous than before”.
ENLIL’S MACABRE STRATEGY NO. 2: FAMINE
Next, Enlil decided to exterminate the world population by way of starvation. "Let supplies be cut off from the people,” he pronounced before the Anunnaki pantheon. “In their bellies, let fruit and vegetables be wanting … Let the rains of the rain god be withheld from above; below, let the waters not rise from their sources.
Let the wind blow and parch the ground; let the clouds thicken, but hold back the downpour.” What Enlil was ordering into use here was what we today call HAARP technology, which has the capacity to control and modify weather all of sudden. The rank wielder of this technology was his youngest son Ishkur-Adad, who was the storm and rain god.
In order to ensure that his orders were carried out, Enlil gave members of the pantheon specific briefs. Enki was to monitor the oceans in flying saucers as well as ocean liners to make sure no one fished from there; his second-born son Nannar-Sin and Enki’s second-born son Nergal were to police the equator and the tropics; and Ishkur-Adad was to patrol the northern hemisphere. Lamech, Noah’s father, was also ordered by Utu-Shamash, Enlil’s grandson and for whom Lamech was a priest-king, not to provide any rations to humans who were based at Sippar. All bases were covered: Enlil wanted no less than globalwide genocide.
“In those days the sufferings on Earth were increasing,” the Sumerian records say of what transpired thereafter. “The days colder grew, the skies their rains were holding back, fields their crops diminished, in the sheepfolds ewe lambs were few … The earth shut its womb, vegetation did not sprout.” Initially, the morning mists and night time dew compensated for the absence of rains but these two petered out. According to a Sumerian text known as The Epic of Astrahasis, “The fertile fields became white … People walked hunched in the streets, their faces looked green …” A raging drought “began to spread devastation. From above, the heat was not … Below, the waters did not rise from their sources. The womb of the earth did not bear.”
The next six shars (36,000 years) were a real horror as man’s plight aggravated. People ate “the earth’s grass” and their faces were “encrusted with hunger”. By the fifth shar, “Human life began to deteriorate. Mothers barred their doors to their own starving daughters. Daughters spied on their mothers to see whether they had hidden any food.” When the sixth shar dawned, “Cannibalism was rampant. They prepared the daughter for a meal; the child they prepared for food. One house devoured the other.” And the one person behind all the purgatory in which mankind was wallowing was none other Enlil, the being Christendom worships as its God under the name Jehovah/Yahweh. This Earth, My Brother …
NEXT WEEK: A MYSTERIOUS MESSENGER FROM “HEAVEN”
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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!
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“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.