Anus New Ray of Hope
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Gold galore turns up in South America courtesy of the Flood!
At the time of the Deluge, Noah already had three sons. Born 6000 years (100 years in the Bible) before the Deluge, they were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This is the order in which they are typically listed in the Bible, implying that Shem was the oldest and Japhet was the youngest.
But the Bible itself is not uniformly consistent in designating who occupied what position in the pecking order. GENESIS 10:21, for instance, says, “Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Japheth”. This makes Japheth senior to Shem and Ham the lastborn as opposed to being the middle son.
Why do the authors of Genesis betray such unabashed uncertainty on the matter? The answer is simple: they had a vested interest in terms of who they wanted to project as the heir to Noah. Since Shem was the pick of the Enlilites and the authors of Genesis (the Levites, a Jewish tribe) were Enlil’s people, they exalted Shem.
Yet the fact of the matter is that all of Noah’s three sons were born in the same year. The Bible itself is matter-of-fact on this phenomenon. GENESIS 5:32 (literally translated as opposed to the paraphrase found in most versions of the Bible) says, “Noah was 500 years old (30,000 years old in Sumerian records) when he begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth”. The three sons were born in the same year. How and why?
There are two likely scenarios. Either the three were born to three different mothers in the natural way or they were Test Tube babies who had been genetically tinkered with to yield refined but distinctive traits. Both the Bible and the Sumerian records far from characterises Noah as a polygamist or a philanderer but he did certainly have concubines as all Biblical patriarchs did, making the Test Tube scenario the more plausible. And whose subtle hand do we see behind this clearly deliberate move to fast-track the emergence of a new generation? It’s Enki of course!
If you recall, the Deluge was anticipated about 25,000 years before it happened. Enki was aware of its full ramifications – that it could extinct the human race, his own creation. As such, he decided, 6,000 years before the Deluge struck, to use Noah, his biological son, as the medium through which the human race was going to be perpetuated post the Deluge.
In the event, Noah had three women (one of whom must have been Noah’s wife Emzara) implanted with Test Tube embryos arising from Noah’s seed, resulting in the birth of Shem, Japhet and Ham. Note that contrary to the commonly held belief, the three did not consist of different races – Caucasian, Semitic, and Hamitic. All were one colour and that colour was darkish, like Falashan Jews. As for the reason different skin tones that include paler races have come to be, that we will address at the appropriate time.
It should also be borne in mind that the names by which the three sons are best known are not original: they were given retrospectively by Jewish chroniclers to reflect what transpired in due course. Hence, Japheth, meaning “Fair One”, was so-dubbed because the Caucasians of the Caucasus region in Central Asia descended from him. Ham, meaning “brown” or “dark”, in the sense of being sunburnt, was so-dubbed because his descendants were dark-brown.
Shem is thought to mean “renowned” or “famous”, but that is a secondary meaning. The original meaning was “Rocket”. Shem’s descendants (the real “Shemites” or “Semites” as per popular spelling, now known as Jews) were chosen by Enlil to protect (by way of being foot soldiers) the Anunnaki spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula. They were thus, in a manner of speaking, the “Guardians of the Rockets”. So the Shem tag was intended to reflect this favoured status by Enlil.
NINURTA STUMBLES UPON PLENTIFUL GOLD
Long before the Deluge broke out, Enlil, the Bible’s main Jehovah/Yahweh, had sent an Anunnaki team led by his firstborn son Ninurta to what we today call the Americas to seek out the race of humans Cain had founded. The idea was to cultivate a rallying force to counter Marduk, who had commanded a huge human following due to his pro-human sympathies as opposed to Enlil’s hard boiled sternness that denounced the human population as little more than serfs.
Ninurta was accompanied by his immediate younger brother Nannar-Sin and his nephew (Sin’s son) Utu-Shamash. The three did find the Cainite civilisation there all right and went out of their way to ingratiate themselves to them. They taught them all the tricks in relation to modernising their lives and improving their standard of living.
Their base (that is, the Ninurta team) was two islands in South America known today as Titicaca and Coati respectively and which are situated around modern-day Bolivia and Peru. At the time, however, they were called the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon respectively. The Island of the Sun was named after Shamash, whose celestial counterpart was the Sun, and the Island of the Moon was named after Sin, whose prospective celestial counterpart was the Moon.
Whereas Sin decided to shelter from the Deluge by staying on the Moon and Shamash by going into orbit, Ninurta chose to ride out the watery disaster right here on Earth in South America, where its effects were reckoned to be minimal. In a way, Ninurta was to the Amerindians what Noah was to the people of Shuruppak. A fairly gifted craftsman, he taught them how to build a sophisticated type of raft that would keep them afloat when the Deluge hit.
Luckily as predicted, the Deluge was not as pronounced in the Americas as it was elsewhere and so those who had rafts, made makeshift homes in mountain caves or simply moved to high-altitude topography survived it. They were henceforth to refer to Ninurta as their “Great Protector”, a title of a deity.
After the Flood had subsided, Enlil called an assembly of the Anunnaki at Baalbek as we saw last week. Ninurta was detailed by Enlil to explore new sources of gold (for the sake of planet Nibiru, which again had lost its atmospheric shield of gold dust, also known as Ormus) in the Americas as that part of the world was not that inundated by the Deluge.
Ninurta did likewise and was surprised at what he discovered. Whereas in Africa the Deluge had clogged up the mines, it had exposed a mother lode of pure gold and copper in that part of the Andes mountain range overlooking Lake Titicaca in today’s Peru and Bolivia. This was what is called Placer Gold – gold which simply washed down the mountains and formed part of the alluvial deposit of the Lake Titicaca bed. The gold did not need smelting or refining: only panning and collecting.
An ecstatic Ninurta reported thus to Enlil: “The avalanche of waters deep cut into the mountainsides there and tore from the mountainsides uncounted gold, in nuggets large and small. To the rivers below (gold nuggets) fell down. Without mining can the gold be hauled!” The moment Enlil and Enki heard this, they flew to South America to assess the situation firsthand. The two seniormost Anunnaki “gods” were equally dumbfounded. “A miracle it is,” Enki said to Enlil.
“What by Nibiru was wrought, by Nibiru was amended!” On his part, Enlil imputed it all to First Source rather than the Celestial Lord that was planet Nibiru. “The unseen hand of the Creator of All is involved,” he said. “It is his desire to enable life on Nibiru!”
NEW SPACEPORT IN THE AMERICAS
When King Anu heard of this providential treasure trove of gold, he was greatly relieved. The solution to Nibiru’s resurgent ozone hole problem had practically overnight become a certainty. The King accordingly ordered that a new spaceport be established around Lake Titicaca forthwith so that the gold could easily be airlifted to Mars onward to Nibiru. The King was even all the more upbeat that there was ready manpower in the form of the Cainites to perform all the required manual tasks.
Enlil and Enki went to work straightaway. “For a new plain whose soil has dried and hardened they searched,” says The Lost Book of Enki. “In the proximity of the Landing Place, in a desolate peninsula, such a plain they found. Flat as a quiet lake it was, by white mountains (the snow-peaked Andes Mountain range) it was surrounded.” This was the beginning of a series of the enigmatic Nazca Lines of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru, which over the centuries have baffled archaeologists.
But the natives know better: they attribute them to the “gods”, that is, the Anunnaki, a claim dismissed as utter superstition by scientific (read: naïve) minds. The Anunnaki etched the Nazca lines onto the runway primary as aviational signals for landing spacecraft, although they did have a sacred geometrical purpose as well.
But it was not only Nibiru-destined gold that was critical at this juncture: the survival of the Anunnaki, as well as the worker race that was mankind, was too. Both the two races needed agricultural and animal products to live on. Once again, Enki and Enlil went to work. Although the Deluge had receded, the planet was still water-logged by and large and so there was need for large-scale land reclamation and drainage activity.
Since the Anunnaki were so few and far between, most of whom having returned to Nibiru pre-Deluge, it’s small wonder Enlil bid surviving mankind to be “fruitful and multiply”: he wanted them to reproduce rapidly and expeditiously and slavishly serve the needs of the Anunnaki, not to have dominion over Earth, has Enki had purposed when he fashioned Adam and Eve. To Enlil, humans were no more than a slave race: period.
Meanwhile, Enki and Enlil assigned specific tasks to various parties. Ninurta was pointed to the Cedar Mountains, where he was to embark on damming and drainage work to facilitate the cultivation of cereals, notably wheat and barley, on the mountain slopes. In the terracing work, he was to be assisted by Japheth, one of Noah’s three sons. Ishkur-Adad was to raise an orchard in the areas where the waters had sufficiently abated. He was to be assisted by Noah’s son Shem.
Dumuzi, Enki’s youngest son, was assigned shepherding activities. He was to be assisted by Noah’s son Ham. An ecstatic Dumuzi, who had always been the Anunnaki’s leading pastoral farmer after undergoing specialised animal husbandry training on Nibiru for a full shar, exclaimed: “Sheep for wool and meat will multiply, cattle for milk and hides will all have. Then with other living creatures the Earth we shall replenish!”
The raw materials for all agricultural products, in the form of reproductive cells, seeds, and DNA were provided by Enki’s son Ninagal, who had preserved them on Noah’s ark whilst the Deluge raged. Noah himself, who was still amongst his people pending his relocation to a soon-to-be-established new “Paradise” in the Sinai Peninsula, was tasked to plant a vineyard. He cultivated the very first food item after the Deluge – grapes. Grape wine also served as a gastro-intestinal medicine. So when the Bible says Noah got drunk after consuming too much wine, it may not necessarily have been intentional: he could simply have overdosed on his medicine!
JERUSALEM IS NEW HUB OF EARTH
Before the Deluge, the Anunnaki had three principal precincts. The first two were right in the Edin, Eden in the Bible, in modern-day Iraq. These were Nippur (or Nibruki) and Sippar. Nippur was the Mission Control Centre and as such was so crucial that Enlil, Earth’s Chief Executive, was based there. Next in strategic importance was Sippar, the spaceport, which was governed by Utu-Shamash, Enlil’s grandson. Finally, there was Baalbek at the summit of the Cedar Mountains.
This was the Landing Place, the major airport. Although it was not based in the Edin, Baalbek was overseen by Utu-Shamash, who was the Anunnaki’s maestro pilot and cosmonaut. After the Deluge, Nippur and Sippar both lay in ruins: only Baalbek survived. A new spaceport and Mission Control Centre had to be built from scratch.
The new spaceport, also known as the Place of the Chariots (Rockets), was set up in the Sinai Peninsula, with the instrument-equipped Mount Mashu as the key landmark for descending spaceships. The new Mission Control Centre, the so-called Bond-Heaven-Earth (that is, the electronic communications link between Earth and planet Nibiru) was to be Mount Moriah at Jerusalem, which Enlil named “Mount of Way Showing”.
Jerusalem had thus become the new “Navel of the Earth”, the new Nippur. It was the place Enlil, known as Yahweh/Jehovah in the Bible, was to be based. It explains why Jerusalem is such a moot point between the children of Abraham – the Jews and the Arabs. It still retains enormous symbolic value as the “City of God” and is also eschatologically significant as the one place on Earth that will serve as the HQ for Yahweh’s “New Earth” when he returns. Baalbek was to retain its erstwhile role as the Landing Place.
Meanwhile, the twin peaks of Mount Ararat were to serve as the northern aviational landmark, the same role they had played before the Deluge. But Enlil wanted another set of twin landmarks in the south to constitute part and parcel of the Landing Grid. To that end, he chose a site where “mountains there were none: only a flatland above the water-clogged valley from the ground protruded”.
This was in the Sahara Desert in today’s Egypt (at the time, the Sahara was not the barren wasteland it is today: it pulsated with lush vegetation). The proposition was clearly a no-brainer but Enlil insisted that it was the only ideal place in Egypt along the 30th Parallel for a landmark to be established. For reasons best known to the Anunnaki, the 30th Parallel (Latitude 30 degrees north) seems to have a certain mysterious significance as the so-called sacred cities from Egypt to Tibet have all been located on it.
ZIDDA HONOUR CAUSES A FRACAS
It was Ningishzidda, Enki’s genius son, who stepped forward and argued that Enlil’s idea was not absurd at all. Twin artificial peaks, he pointed out, could be raised from the Sahara plain. Within days, he had already come up with a scale model. The Giza pyramids (named after Ningishzidda himself, also known as Gizzidda or simply Zidda in short), comprising of one large one and two smaller ones, were in the making, but the focus was on the large one, the Giza Pyramid proper, which was the first to arise. It was to serve as a beacon to arriving spacecraft, just like the Ararat mountain peaks in central Asia.
When the Giza Pyramid was complete, Enlil commissioned it and called it the Ekur, meaning “House which is like a Mountain”. Its capstone, which was designed by Enki’s other son Gibil, was made of electrum. Enlil said besides its aviational purpose, the Giza Pyramid was a proclamation to posterity that the Anunnaki valiantly survived the Deluge.
In a poem recited and sang by Ninmah on the occasion of its commissioning, the Giza Pyramid was in part described in the following words: “For Heaven-Earth it is equipped, the handiwork of the Anunnaki it is. House bright and dark, house of Heaven and Earth. For the celestial boats it was put together, by the Anunnaki built. House whose interior with a reddish light of heaven glows, a pulsating beam that far and high reaches it emits … Beyond the understanding of Earthlings it is. House of equipment, lofty house of eternity … House that for the rocketships is a landmark, with unfathomable insides.”
From the above statement, it is clear that besides being an aviational landmark, the Giza Pyramid served several other purposes withheld from Earthlings, which we shall dwell upon at a later stage. Enki also came up with the proposal that another structure be built alongside the Giza Pyramid as a monument to mark the dawn of the astrological Age of Leo. Once again, Ningishzidda was assigned to erect it.
The monument is today known as the Great Sphinx of Giza, which has the body of a lion and the face of a man. To honour the person who fashioned it (out of an already existing rock), the Sphinx was to bear the face of Ningishzidda, a tribute that did not sit well with Marduk.
Marduk was irate. He confronted his father, Enki, and complained that he was being eclipsed in eminence by his younger brother. “To dominate the whole Earth to me did you promise,” he thundered. “Now command and glory to others are granted, without task or dominion I am left. In my erstwhile domain are the artificed mounts situated, on the lion the image mine must be!”
But it was all in vain: Marduk didn’t get his face to be etched into the Sphinx as the matter was not only up to Enki but the whole pantheon. Be that as it may, Marduk’s bone of contention set up a racket. Everybody now – Enlil and Enki’s sons – began to jockey for own personal honours. In particular, they wanted to be allocated new domains where they would reign supreme. The brouhaha was such that Ninmah was called upon to appeal for calm though to no avail. How were Enlil and Enki going to pacify their brood?
NEXT WEEK: THE SCRAMBLE FOR TERRITORY
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.