Zidda Illumines America
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Meanwhile, Marduk has a new rival to contend with courtesy of Inanna
Ningishzidda’s departure from Egypt to Babylon in August 3113 BC was significant in his own view. In that very same month, he introduced a new calendar to toast to the peace of mind that came with his move. Zidda though did not intend to stay in Babylon for long: it was simply a whistle-stop on his way to the Americas. The moment he arrived in Babylon, he sent an advance party of a loyal team of Olmecs – the dark-skinned, Bantu-like Anunnaki – to the Americas so they could prepare for his arrival there as per Enki’s urging. Then three years later, in 3110 BC, Zidda himself set off for the Americas after the Olmecs had signalled to him that he was being awaited there with bated breath as their prospective god.
In the Americas, Zidda’s legal domain encompassed Mesoamerica (Mexican-speaking territories which included the whole of Mexico and parts of today’s US) and Central America but his influence permeated all the way down to the northern parts of South America. The people he ruled over were the Aztecs, today known as Mexicans ; the Yucatans, who are found in the northern parts of Mexico; the Mayans, who today inhabit southern Mexico, El Salvador, Belize, and Honduras; and the Incas of ancient Peru.
The Mayans document that their “white-skinned, bearded god” arrived during the Fourth Sun, which they called “The Era of the Black-Headed People”. We know by now that the Black-Headed people was how the Anunnaki referred to mankind in general but to the Sumerians in particular. The Codex Rios, which was written in 1566, says the Fourth Sun began “5042 years ago”. Counting from our day, this dates back to approximately 6,000 years ago, when the Sumerian civilisation blossomed.
As god of the Americas, Zidda was known by several names. The Aztecs called him Quetzalcoatl, meaning “Flying Reptile”. This was because he was an Enkite – the Serpent race – and he flew in a huge aircraft. The Incas called him Viracocha, meaning “Creator of All”. The Mayans called him Kulcan, meaning “Great Bird of the Snake”, again in reference to both his flying craft and his genetic pedigree. The Yucatans called him Votan, whose meaning is obscure. But they do give us a clue as to who Votan was.
He’s characterised as “the first man whom God had sent to this region to people and parcel out the land that is now called America”. The Yucatans go on to say, “… his emblem was the Serpent. He was a descendant of the Guardians, of the race of Can. His place of origin was a land called Chivim … At the tributary of a great river he built a city which was the cradle of this civilisation … He called the city Nachan, which means Place of Serpents."
There are a lot of tell-tales in the above pieces of data. The “Guardians”, or Neteru, was how the Anunnaki were referred to by Egyptians. The Serpent was the insignia of the Enkites, in particular Enki and Zidda: even Marduk was scorned as “The Great Serpent” by the Enlilites. The notion of Votan having descended from the race of “Can” – the biblical Cain, the founder of the Indian race – is a mix-up but only slightly so as Cain, having been sired by Enki and Titi-Eve, had more Anunnaki than human blood in him. Chivim was in Canaan and the Canaanites were found in both Egypt and Palestine. Nachan jells very well with Nachash – the Hebrew word for Serpent.
There was a yet another little-known name by which Zidda was called by the Peruvians but which today carries more resonance geopolitically than the rest. This was Amaruca. Amaruca derived from the ancient compound word Ome-Ori-Eke, which meant “Divine Creator Spirit”, or simply God. It was Amaruca/Ome-Ori-Eke which through a linguistic twist and the evolution simply of words became America. The official version of how the name America came about is that it was in honour of the pioneering Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512).
However, researchers have long debunked this claim. It has been found that Vespucci actually changed his first name from Alberigo, his original name, to Amerigo after his return from the Americas (North and South America). In other words, the continents were already known by the name America long before he turned up there. In any case, if the two continents were to be named after him, they would have been called Vespucca, after his surname. Landmarks are named after a legend’s surname (or both names in some cases) and not his first name. One example is America’s political capital, which is known as Washington and not George.
BLACK ANUNNAKI CIVILISE AMERICA
In the Mayan annals, Quetzacoatl has been described as “tall of stature, bright of countenance, bearded, and wearing a long tunic. His staff, shaped like a serpent, was painted black, white, and red; it was inlaid with precious stones and adorned with six stars”. He was the great benefactor of the Hispanics in all manner of ways. He inaugurated his own civilisation for that region of the world when he arrived there in 3110 BC. He was “master of wisdom and knowledge” who “introduced learning, crafts, laws, and time reckoning according to the fifty-two-year cycle.”
But the white-skinned Zidda was simply the figurehead: the people who actually civilised the Americas were his loyalist men, the Olmecs, who even today remain immortalised in stone in various parts of that region. The Olmecs were the first to arrive in the Americas in 3113 BC and by the time Zidda joined them in 3110 BC, they had made mammoth strides in revolutionalising the region. Writes Zechariah Sitchin in his War of the Gods: “The first Mesoamerican glyphic writing appears in the Olmec realm; so does the Mesoamerican system of numeration, of dots and bars.
The first Long Count calendar inscriptions, with the enigmatic starting date in 3113 BC; the first works of magnificent and monumental sculpted art; the first use of jade; the first depictions of hand-held weapons or tools; the first ceremonial centres; the first celestial orientations—all were achievements of the Olmecs. No wonder that with so many ‘firsts’, some (as J. Soustelle, The Olmecs) have compared the Olmec civilisation of Mesoamerica to that of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, which accounted for all the ‘firsts’ in the ancient Near East.”
It’s small wonder the meticulously sculpted Olmec stone heads are so colossal – to testify to the fact that they wrought great accomplishments in Mesoamerica. One such sculpture “measured about eight feet in height, twenty-one feet in circumference, and weighed about twenty-four tons. It depicts without question a Negroid African wearing a distinct helmet.” The latter part, of the Olmecs being “Negroid Africans”, is a mere assumption owing to the fact that indeed the Olmecs bore features that were African in every respect. But the fact of the matter is that they were not Africans at all: they were dark-skinned Anunnaki.
If you expected Caucasian chroniclers who write much of Earth’s history to state categorically that these great, gigantic dark-skinned people were from another planet, you would be deluding yourself. They would rather say the Anunnaki were “blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and white-skinned”. Yet the Anunnaki, as we keep emphasising, were not a homogeneous race: they came in all hues – black, white, Indian-like, Chinese-like, Semitic-like, Hispanic-like, etc. The white-skinned Anunnaki are famous only because they were the ruling clique. It were the Olmecs who did much of the gold mining in Africa before Enki fashioned mankind as their skin pigmentation was more amenable to the climactic conditions of the planet obtaining at the time, which the white-skinned Anunnaki found oppressive in the extreme. And it was the gene of an Olmec that Enki blended with that of Ape Man to create Adam.
Of particular significance was Zidda’s now famous Mayan Calendar, known as the Long Count. Writes Zechariah Sitchin. “The oldest of the three Mesoamerican calendars is known as the Long Count: it counted the number of days from a ‘Day One’ that scholars have identified as August 13, 3113 BC. Alongside this continuous but linear calendar there were two cyclical calendars. One, the Haab, was a solar-year calendar of 365 days, divided into 18 months of 20 days each plus an additional 5 special days at year’s end.
The other was the Tzolkin, a Sacred Calendar of only 260 days, composed of a 20-day unit rotated 13 times. The two cyclical calendars were then meshed together, as two geared wheels to create the Sacred Round of 52 years, when these two counts returned to their common starting point and started the counts all over again.”
Zidda introduced three calendars in Mesoamerica, the most famous being the Long Count, which brought the year 2012 to the fore of global discourse. A Long Count is a cycle of 5126 years. The starting point of this calendar was what the Mayans called Point Zero – the very year Zidda devised the Long Count, or 3113 BC. The Long Count can be measured in days (a kin); 20-days (1 uinal); 360-days ( 1 tun); 7,200-days (1 katun); and lastly 144,000-days (1 baktun).
Typically, the Long Count is measured in baktuns. Now, if you count the number of years that will have passed from 3113 BC to the end of 2012, you will arrive at exactly 5126 years. A Long Count equals 13 baktuns, or 1,872,000 days (144,000 x 13). The 13th Baktun ended on December 22 2012, such that in January 2013, the cycle began all over again. Since 13 is a unlucky number to the wider world (yet a lucky number to the Illuminati), it explained the trash talk that ran riot about the end of the world on 22 December 2012. It was all bollocks really as we rightly predicted in one of our Weekend Post articles of April 2012.
EXIT ZIDDA, ENTER DUMUZI
If Marduk thought by getting Zidda out of the way he was now firm in the saddle, he was greatly mistaken. For no sooner had Zidda left the scene than another contender emerged to try and throw a spanner in the works. This was none other than his youngest brother Dumuzi. Dumuzi was Enki’s youngest son and automatically the dearest as all lastborns are. “Greatly beloved was Dumuzi,” the Sumerian records relate. “By Enki after the death of Asar (Osiris) he was favoured.” But as much as Enki doted on Dumuzi, the Enlilites were enamoured of him too. They looked upon him as a possible political ally.
To date, they had to a degree won over two Enkites. These were Nergal, Marduk’s immediate younger brother, and Zidda, the fourth brother. Nergal was won over when he was enticed to marry Ereshkigal, Enlil’s granddaughter through his second-born son Nannar-Sin. Zidda was to all intents and purposes a direct Enlilite stake: he was Ereshkigal’s son, having arose in the course of a romantic liaison between Enki and Ereshkigal that predated the latter’s marriage to Nergal. The Enlilite eyes now were set on Dumuzi too. Why him rather that other siblings of Marduk in Gibil and Ninagal?
Gibil and Ninagal were not that politically ambitious and were very far from the scene of the tug-of-war that was Egypt. Dumuzi on the other hand was based right in Egypt. Although he had never ruled Egypt as a whole, Enki had seen to it that he had a semi-autonomous enclave known as Meluhha, or Nubia, which encompassed today’s central Sudan and southern Egypt and where all Tswana-speaking people originate. Meluhha was not only one of the most fertile and richest parts of ancient Egypt but it was also well-endowed mineral-resourcewise. Say the Sumerian chronicles: “In the Land of the Two Narrows (Egypt) for Dumuzi and the shepherds a habitation did Enki fashion. To Dumuzi, his youngest son, Enki a large domain above the Abzu allotted. Meluhha, the Black Land, was its name. Highland trees there grew, its waters abundant were. Large bulls among its river reeds roamed, greatly numbered were its cattle. Silver from its mountains came, its copper bright as gold was aglitter.”
Even more significant, Dumuzi and Inanna-Ishtar, Enlil’s granddaughter, were madly in love. Their love affair, which was initiated through the gallantry of the sex-crazy Inanna herself, is arguably the world’s first Romeo and Juliet affair and the inspiration to King Solomon’s Song of Solomon love canticles of the Old Testament. Solomon never had a devoted, sizzling love affair to write about: what you read in Song of Solomon was purloined from the Dumuzi-Inanna romance. The couple’s affair blossomed when Horus was ruling Egypt (between 8970 and 8670 BC). When the war between Horus and Seth for the control of Egypt, where Inanna was known as Ashtoreth, was at feverpitch, Inanna fought at the battlefront on the side of Horus for the sake of Dumuzi, who was backing Horus in the confrontation.
What exactly attracted Inanna to Dumuzi? For starters, Dumuzi had a potent enough libido (primarily because he was young and therefore hot-blooded) to satisfy the seamless sex-craving of Inanna. Dumuzi was also filthy rich, from both his pastoral exploits (the reason he was known as “The Herder” or “The Shepherd”) and his mineral wealth. But the reason that overrode all others was that Inanna wanted to use Dumuzi as a foil on Marduk’s ambitions and as the fulfiller of her own.
It was Dumuzi she wanted to take over as the Enlil when the Age of Aries dawned at the expense of Marduk so that she could realise her age-old yearning to become the “Queen of Earth”. As for Dumuzi, he was smitten by Inanna because she was at once a stunning beauty, a courageous warrior, and a feared fistic fighting machine at just five-foot-five, a midget in Anunnaki terms. “Beautiful beyond describing she was,” say the Sumerian tablets. “In martial arts with Anunnaki heroes she competed.”
INANNA AND DUMUZI TIE KNOT
Dumuzi and Inanna, who had an on-and-off relationship despite their fabled love affair, dated for almost 6000 years before they decided to tie the knot. Why did they take that long? Bear in mind that in Anunnaki terms, this was hardly a long time: it was just over one-and-half years. Of the duo, it was Inanna who prevailed over Dumuzi that it was time he led her to the altar. The timing on the part of Inanna was strategic. It was circa 3100 BC, when civilisation took effect in Egypt. Thus if Dumuzi was to ascend to the reins and Inanna was queen, the couple would preside over a country with enormous economic and technological potential.
Inanna was the first to inform her clan of the planned nuptials. Sin, her father, and Ningal, her mother, were ecstatic. Utu-Shamash, her twin brother, who had always nudged his sister in the direction of Dumuzi, gave her the thumbs-up to. As for Enlil, the Bible’s main Yahweh/Jehovah, the marriage was very politically apt. “Perchance the espousing peace between the clans truly will bring,” he reasoned as he gave the intended union the nod. The Enkites too were over the moon when Dumuzi broke the news to them. True, Inanna wasn’t a woman of particularly good standing morally: she was famed for her outrageously loose sexual morals.
What counted in her favour, however, was the fact that she carried a lot of political clout among the Enlilites. To give just one example, she had been promised rulership of the Indus Valley and so if she were to marry Dumuzi, it meant the Enkites would have considerable sway in an Enlilite sphere of influence. Moreover, as King Anu’s favourite female relation, she enjoyed his support, albeit qualified, and more often than not, she got away with just about every transgression in the book owing to this backing. Finally, there was the matter of cementing peace between the Enlilites and the Enkites, a factor that outweighed any other.
At Dumuzi and Inanna’s engagement party, “a bethrothal bed of gold by Gibil was fashioned, Nergal blue-hued lapis stones sent”. As the two love flames prepared for the big day, Inanna seemed to make it clear to Dumuzi that their forthcoming marriage was as much about politics as it was about spontaneous mutual affection. Every time they made love, Inanna cooed her agenda for Egypt into Dumuzi’s ear whilst emphasising that it was her who would be calling the shots. “Subdue the rebellious country, let the nation multiply,” she urged. “I will direct the country rightly”. When the wedding day arrived, Dumuzi’s half-sister Geshtinanna was her chaperone. As she touched and spruced her up, Inanna confided in her her designs on Egypt.
“A vision of a great nation I have, as a Great Anunnaki Dumuzi there will rise,” she gushed prospectively. “His name over others shall be exalted, his queen-spouse I shall be. Princely status we will share, rebellious countries we shall together subdue. To Dumuzi I will status give, the country I will rightly direct!”
Geshtinanna was disturbed upon hearing this. If Inanna persuaded Dumuzi to oust Marduk, what would prevent her from persuading him to do the same with Nergal and other Enkites so that Dumuzi ended up the sole ruler of the vastly rich continent of Africa? So it was that on the very day the wedding concluded, Geshtinanna took Marduk aside and divulged to him what Inanna had told her in confidence. Marduk, who initially had supported the idea of the marriage, now rued his folly. Did Inanna’s cunning know any bounds? And now that she had dug her hooks into Dumuzi, could she ever be tamed?
NEXT WEEK: MARDUK INDICTED FOR MURDER
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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 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 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.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. “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.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:
“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.â€
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.â€
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 restaurantâ€, 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. 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. “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.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 “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 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, 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!’â€
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.