Nuclear Holocaust in India
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Inanna and her Reptilian allies routed by the Anunnaki
In July 1945, the US detonated its first nuclear bomb at Alamogordo in the state of New Mexico as a dress rehearsal for what was to transpire in Japan. Subsequent to that, Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who headed the Manhattan Project, the programme that spawned the atomic bomb, was asked by a student at Rochester University as to whether that was the first time an atomic weapon had been exploded on Earth.
Oppenheimer’s answer was revelatory. He said, “In modern times yes”. In other words, nuclear devices had been used before on this planet in ages past: Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the first cities on the planet to bear the brunt of a nuclear blast.
How did Oppenheimer know this? As we keep telling you folks, the Illuminati know a great deal more about the world and its history than you and I do. But some of this knowledge is not privileged as such: it’s out there in ancient texts which the naive “intellectual” simply dismisses as pure myth. Indeed, behind closed doors, the Illuminati just cannot help laughing at just how dumb we, the so-called “intelligentsia”, are. We’re supposed to be the leading lights, the beacons, of the society in which we live, but we’re just as benighted as the village idiot in the final analysis!
It is no secret that Oppenheimer was an avid student of the ancient Hindu and Vedic texts. One such corpus, the 200,000-verse strong Mahabharata, sets out in graphic detail how “Aliens” went to war in India and used weapons which had the same effect as the two bombs dropped three days apart on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by “The Great Satan” Uncle Sam.
Since the Mahabharata War took place in a remote place in the Anunnaki’s Third Region and whose language (invented by Enki) was so radically different from Sumerian, it is not documented in the Sumerian chronicles. As such, we have only the Mahabharata document (and a sister document known as the Ramayan) as the only authoritative source.
But the problem with the Mahabharata document is that it is very complex: it uses Sanskrit names, not the familiar Sumerian or Akkadian names for the Anunnaki. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to tell who was fighting who as well as who exactly was part of the attendant alliances. One really has to wrack their brains and raptly read between the lines of the English translation to get the drift of the story.
But we know the Mahabharata War was an Anunnaki vs. Reptilian conflict because the Anunnaki were ruling Earth at the time it took place and Inanna in particular was the goddess of broader India, which those days encompassed all countries inhabited by peoples of the Indian race today and parts of other Asian countries.
And since the war pitted the forces of Inanna against the forces of Enlil and very sophisticated weaponry was used on either side, Inanna alone wouldn’t have mastered that firepower: she must have had help. And the only anti-Anunnaki force she could have drawn on were the Earth-based Reptilians. There are actually more than superficial hints in the Mahabharata records that Reptilians did do duty in the war.
In fact, in 1999, Larceta, a Reptilian researcher, emerged from the subterranean Reptilian world in which she lived and gave a highly insightful interview to a bright Swedish recluse. In the interview, she touched on a series of wars that took place between her race and the Anunnaki in antiquity (see The Zeta Series).
VAIN MEDIATION EFFORTS BY ABRAHAM’S FATHER
As soon as Inanna had the Reptilians sign on the dotted line, she made her whereabouts known to the Anunnaki pantheon and served notice that she was going to war against them over the supremacy of Earth and would trounce them once and for all. Intelligence emanating from Mohenjo Daro, where Inanna was headquartered, aided by satellite espionage, showed that Inanna was arming herself to the teeth having allied herself with the Reptilians. The scale of the weaponry at her disposal was such that if she struck the Anunnaki first, it would be a knockout. The Anunnaki had to work round the clock to prepare themselves for the fray and mount a pre-emptive attack.
Information with regard to exactly how the Alien belligerents made their preparations, how they deliberated, and how they strategised is sketchy. But Anu was informed and he certainly did give the Anunnaki the go-ahead to engage in hostilities with Inanna & Co. Now, although Inanna was the goddess of the Third Region, her subjects were not unanimously loyal to her. They were in two factions fundamentally.
One faction, known as the Kaurava coalition, named after the main tribe, rallied behind Inanna. The other faction, known as the Pandava coalition, had no distinct sovereign territory (like the Kurds of the Middle East today, the world’s most populace race without an own official country) and so closed ranks with the Anunnaki.
Perhaps the most prominent personage among the Pandava ranks was Krishna, called Terah in the Bible, the father of Abraham. Krishna, who is usually compared with Jesus, was the Dalai Lama of the day. A demigod (a Anunnaki-Earthling hybrid), Krishna was at once the chieftain of a tribe known as the Yadavas and Priest-King of the Kingdom of Dwaraka. Initially, Krishna did not side with any of the feuding parties being a “holy man”.
So when it became apparent that hostilities were in the offing between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, he sought an audience with the Kauravas to plead with them to settle differences with their foes peacefully instead of resorting to war. Krishna knew that strictly speaking, the war was between the Reptilians and the Anunnaki and that humans were simply pawns in the chess game, but he would rather humans came to terms with each other and let Aliens slug it out on their own.
Suspicious that all Krishna was trying to do was to lure them into a blindfold, the Kauravas told him to get lost. It was this snub that forced him to throw in his lot with the Pandavas. Krishna’s main role among the Pandavas was that of a strategic guru though he did actively participate in the warfare with distinction.
WAR ERUPTS
When war broke out, it was fought from every frontier – by land, by air, and by sea, including in cities under the seabed. Earthlings fought on dry land whereas the Aliens fought a high-tech war mainly in the air, though eventually the airborne war impacted on the happenings on terra firma.
It were the Anunnaki who took the war to the enemy, Inanna and her Reptilian allies. As such, the many theatre of the war was India, in particular the vast Kingdom of Kurukshetra, today called Haryana. The main war zone spanned an area of 80 km2 and encompassed seven major forests.
Now, the Anunnaki had all kinds of sophisticated weaponry. Some they used in the war against each other but most of the weaponry they simply kept, either in the underground silos dotted all over the planet or on Mars and the Moon. It is probable that the weaponry they requisitioned for use against Inanna came not from here but from Mars, transported in their lightning-quick flying saucers. .
On Inanna’s side, the beings who allied with her were not only Lizard beings: there were also the Nagas (part-snake, part-human) and the Supernas (part-bird, part human) according to a passage in the Mahabharata. One day, these beings, or Intraterrestrials (beings of Alien genotype who are resident on Earth), attended a royal wedding. They arrived in vimanas, described as golden or gold plated “aerial cars” which could fly both in air and under the sea and could travel at a speed “swifter than thought”.
These Intraterrestrials were immortal, says the Mahabharata, because they drank a substance known as Soma or Ambrosia. Soma was made from the menstruum of a senior goddess. The knowledge of preparing Soma, according to the Mahabharata texts, “was brought down to Earth from the Celestial Abode”. Since these were predominantly Reptilians, that could be in reference to the throne planet of the Draco star system, the principal domain of the Reptilian race.
The Intraterrestrials’ favourite “sacrifice” was cattle. Why cattle? Because the god of that age (Taurus), Enlil, was represented by the bull and he was an enemy god to them. The sacrificed animal in vogue in antiquity always represented the enemy. For example, in biblical times, the Jews, Enlil’s chosen people, were made to sacrifice the ram, a sheep, because it represented the Enlilite arch-enemy Marduk, who was the rightful god of Aries, the astrological Age of the Ram.
In the human vs. human confrontation, a total of approximately 4 million people took part in the war. They comprised of the chariot riders, the elephant riders, the horse riders, and the infantry in the main. The demigods, who were a tiny proportion, used tanks and other more sophisticated weapons.
The Mahabharata characterises the Anunnaki as “gods” and the Intraterrestrials as the “Asura”. It says, “The gods and the Asuras, both of them sprung from the Father of Gods and Men (King Anu of Nibiru, ‘Our Father Who Art In Heaven’), were [again] contending for superiority”. Of course the Intraterrestrials were not all cosmic subjects of Anu but this was in reference to Inanna fundamentally, who was a descendent of Anu.
The Intraterrestrials were mean as according to the Mahabharata, they unleashed ballistic missiles at the “Three Regions of the Earth” (Sumer, North Africa, and Canaan) from “three metal fortresses in the skies”, which simply means fighter craft along the lines of America’s Stealth Bomber. The Anunnaki offensive was horrendous.
A HIGH-TECH WAR
The weapons employed in the war comprised of what we could call conventional weapons and futuristic weapons in our day. Among the conventional weapons were landmines, Asthras (missiles), and Dhanush (rocket launchers). A reference to land mines can be gleaned from a statement by Krishna, who talking about his own city Dwaravati says, “And the land around the city for a full two miles was rendered uneven, and holes and pits were dug thereon, and combustibles were secreted below the surface”.
There were weapons that did not kill but simply rendered the enemy unconscious – call them humane chemical weapons. These are referred to as the Sanmohana or Pramohana. An account of the use of one such weapon goes like this: “The youthful son of Drupada … applied that fierce weapon called Pramohana … Then those heroic warriors were deprived of their senses, their minds and strength afflicted by the Pramohana weapon.” But the effects of the Pramohana could also be reversed using a counter, antidote weapon.
“Then Drona beheld his sons deprived of their senses. Taking up then the weapon called Prajna, he neutralised the Pramohana weapon. Then his sons, those mighty car-warriors, when their senses returned, once more proceeded to battle with Bhima and Prishata's sons.”
There were weapons that brought about artificial winds meant to disperse the clouds to either prevent rain or improve visibility, and weapons called the Varanuastra, which caused artificial harm-inducing rain, something akin to acid rain. The Varanuastra is described thus in the Mahabharata: “When a warrior discharges a Varunuastra, its smoke is converted into a cloud. The moment it comes in contact with air, it converts the cloud to rain.” That sounds very much like our modern science of Artificial Rain, where chemicals like ammonium nitrate are used to rise and form rain clouds, then the density of the clouds are increased and finally a jet of rain-making chemicals is shot directly into the clouds.
Some defence weapons were capable of rendering one invisible to the naked eye. One combatant relates how the enemy, who he had targeted with a weapon “capable of going at a great height and possessing intense energy”, simply vanished into thin air. “I could not then see the car of costly metals (tank), for it had vanished, through illusion! I was then filled with wonder!”
There also were weapons which could strike a living target by simply tracking its sound. In one instance, a combatant lay in ambush as the enemy approached. The enemy, who he hadn’t seen yet, kind of “set up a loud howl”. The combatant aimed a sound-tracking weapon in their direction and there was immediate silence as they all died. “They were all slain by those shafts of mine blazing as the sun and capable of striking at the perception of sound alone.”
Some weapons had effects that lingered many years after the war. One such weapon, called the Brahmasthira, triggered a drought that lasted for 18 years in an entire region “for the clouds did not pour a drop of water there for this period". Enlil’s third-born son, referred to in the Mahabharata as “Storm God”, performed brilliantly in the war. Says one account of him: “On land, he smote ninety-nine strongholds of the Asuras, killing great numbers of their armed followers. In the skies, he fought from his aerial car the Asuras, who were hiding in their ‘cloud fortresses’."
ATOMB BOMB BRINGS ABRUPT ENDING TO WAR
It was the use of nuclear weapons by the Anunnaki that brought the Mahabharata War to a sudden end. Somehow, the Intraterrestrial coalition was caught off-guard since according to the Mahabharata text, they too had the technology to neutralise a nuclear bomb. It is also probable that there was a warfare convention in place which forbade the use of nuclear and other deadlier weapons but which the Anunnaki flouted to win the war decisively and expeditiously. The following is how the Mahabharata describes the nuclear bomb and its effects:
“Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with the power of the Universe [nuclear device]. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendour. It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white … After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected … To escape from this fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment.”
Another passage says, “The weapon that had been shot by Ashwathama blazed up with terrible flames within a huge sphere of fire (Mushroom Cloud in atomic parlance). Numerous peals of thunder were heard; thousands of meteors fell; and all living creatures became inspired with great dread. The whole world seemed to be filled with noise and assumed a terrible aspect with those flames of fire. The whole earth with her mountains and waters and trees trembled.” Still another passage says, “Explosions of final weapons decimated entire armies, causing crowds of warriors with steeds and elephants and weapons to be carried away as if they were dry leaves of trees.”
The two atom bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the same eerie effect. The Mahabharata War lasted for only 18 days. About half a million people died and the cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were wiped out entirely, only to be unearthed in the 20th century in the 1920s. The Pandavas had defeated the Kauravas; the gods had trounced the Asuras; the Anunnaki had triumphed over the Intraterrestrials. Above all, Inanna-Ishtar had eaten humble pie: she had been vanquished by her own kith and kin.
EVIDENCE FOR ANCIENT ATOMIC WARFARE
The fact that nuclear weapons were used in the Mahabharata War is not simply a supposition: it has been borne out by archaeological excavations that were done at the sites of the ancient cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa from 1922 to 1931. At Mohenjo Daro, about 37 skeletons were found.
“All the skeletons were flattened to the ground,” says one report. “For example, a father, mother and child were found flattened in the street, facedown and still holding hands … The skeletons were scattered about the cities, many holding hands and sprawling in the streets as if some instant, horrible doom had taken place.”
These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found on par with those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At one site, Soviet scholars found a skeleton which had a radioactive level 50 times greater than normal. The skeletons have been carbon-dated to 2500 BC but since carbon-dating is not pin-point accurate, we should allow for a margin era of about 300 to 400 years, which brings the latest date of the Mahabharata War to about 2140 BC according to our reckoning.
Author David Davenport says, “There was an epicentre about 50 yards wide where everything was crystallized, fused or melted. Sixty yards from the centre the bricks are melted on one side indicating a blast 4,000 years ago.” In Rajasthan, India, it was found that a layer of radio-active ash covered a three-square mile area. The Indian government was forced to cordon off the area on account of high rates of birth defects and cancer.
NEXT WEEK: IRON LADY IN CONTENTION AGAIN!
Columns
GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams had a sudden premonition that pointed to Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.”
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
“On 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General, was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” Well, she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, “I have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.”
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome. It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law, had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction. Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodi’s apartment after the crash, has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossi’s sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet box”.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
‘The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of one’s belief in Allah’s oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a ‘full service’. This ‘service’ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ‘rest’ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allah’s commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: “On a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: ‘I am fasting!’”
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one year’s end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich one’s conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.