Nuclear Blitz on Canaan
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Nergal and Ninurta unleash seven Atomic Bombs on Sodom, Gomorrah, and Anunnaki spaceport in Sinai Peninsula
Lot, his wife, and his two virgin daughters were airlifted by the Anunnaki espionage agents of Ninurta and dropped on the outskirts of Sodom as Lot wanted to do some impromptu, last-minute business there. “The men took hold of his hand and his wife's hand and his two daughters' hands and they brought them out, and put them down outside the city,” Genesis relates.
The Anunnaki then bid Lot to make his way to the Judean mountains once he was done with the business. "Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stop thou anywhere in the plain," they instructed him. “Unto the mountains escape, lest thou perish." Lot’s intention was to go down south as far as the town of Zoar, which was the furthest of the pentropolis. Getting there on a chariot would certainly take time. So Lot asked the Anunnaki to on his behalf beseech Ninurta to delay pressing the nuclear button for at least a full day.
The emissaries hearkened: they promised him they would do likewise. They knew in their hearts, which they didn’t confide to Lot, that there were still five to six more days before the nuclear weapons were unleashed on the two cities. Hence, Lot had plenty of time to gather as much ground as he needed in his flight. “And Lot, as instructed, went on to dwell in the mountain." Abraham too was ordered out of the Negev (the arid district bordering on the Sinai) and to find haven near the Mediterranean coast, in the district of the Philistines. He sought refuge there at Gerar.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH’S “SIN” WAS A LIFE OF BLISS
Why did the Anunnaki hawks (Enlil, Ninurta, Nergal, and Inanna-Ishtar) decide to nuke Sodom and Gomorrah? We’re familiar with some of the advanced reasons. According to the Bible, “the cities of the Jordan Plain” (Sodom and Gomorrah) were “wicked”. They had “forsaken the covenant of the Lord … and they went and served other gods” – DEUTERONOMY 29:22-27.
But the Bible does not explain who “the Lord” was; what the “covenant of the Lord” was; and who “other gods” were. It is the Sumerian chronicles that fill in the gaps. The “Lord " was Enlil, the Bible’s principal Yahweh. The “other gods” were Marduk and his son Nabu. And the “covenant” was an age-old one, entered into between the Enlilites and the Enkites and according to which Africa was allotted to the Enkites and Europe and the Middle East/Central Asia to the Enlilites.
Thus the Canaanites (descendents of Canaan, who was an Enkite) were not supposed to inhabit Canaan (which was named after them in that they outnumbered the Shemites (Enlilites) by far) as it was not their covenanted land. However, the Enlilites too were guilty of flouting the same covenant in that at the time Marduk and Nabu were making inroads into Canaan, Abraham and his wife were joint pharaohs of I-Sira-El – northern Egypt. Both the two clans had inter-penetrated each other’s territory.
As for being wicked, the biblical take is not corroborated by extra-biblical accounts. For example, Josephus observes that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had grown haughty by virtue of their individual riches and collective wealth. “They hated strangers,” he writes. “God was therefore much displeased at them, and determined to punish them for their pride, and to overthrow their city, and to lay waste their country, until there should neither plant nor fruit grow out of it.” Which strangers?
The strangers were not foreigners in general: it were foreigners who were pro-Enlilite. The word “hated” in fact ought to be substituted with “resented” given that Lot, a literal foreigner and an Enlilite for that matter, had lived in pro-Marduk Sodom for 17 years without any problems whatsoever. Like any other proud nation, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah resented Enlilites because they were suspicious of them. But they didn’t mind co-existing with them.
A number of extra-biblical religious Jewish texts also seem to corroborate the fact that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were filthy rich, the source of their vanity. For example, the Mishnah says the problem with the Sodomites was excessive property: this was their “sin”. In 2015, a team of archaeologists lead by Steve Collins reported their 10-year excavation of Sodom, which was Canaan’s principal city of the day (it is mentioned 45 times in the Bible). They characterise it as an extremely rich trade centre with waterways.
“It was a colossal city,” they write. The exact site they excavated is described as “consisting of both a lower and upper city. It features Early Bronze Age (3500 – 2350 BCE) evidence for a 5.2 meter thick city wall (built and then re-built stronger following an earthquake) as much as 10 meters in height and made entirely of mud bricks, with associated gates, towers, at least one roadway, and plazas.”
What the biblical writers describe as sin was only so because the Enlilites very much limited the freedoms of their worshippers. On the other hand, Marduk was a liberal who gave his people unfettered freedom of expression and association (like the kind encountered in the US) in the new dispensation of Aries. This is what Enlil frowned upon and denounced as sin.
NERGAL AND NINURTA SPLIT ROLES
At the time of which we write, Canaan had five major cities. Yet of the five, only two were in the cross-hairs of Enlil – Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason were three-fold. First, they were the largest and the most prosperous. Second, they constituted the nerve centre of Marduk support. Third, Nabu, Marduk’s heir, was rumoured to be hiding in either of the two cities. Nergal, who was charged with directly conducting the nuclear attack, had vowed that he would nuke the entire expanse of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with a view to ensuring that Nabu was no more.
“The Mesopotamian (Sumerian) cities I won’t touch,” he said. “The coastal towns (those along the Mediterranean seaboard) I will live alone. I shall annihilate the son (Nabu), and let the father (Marduk) bury him. Then I shall kill the father, and let no one bury him. The lands they (Marduk and Nabu) covet will vanish, the sinning cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) I will upheaval! To the place of the gods, access he shall not have: the place from where the Great Ones ascend (spaceport) I shall upheaval” This was despite Ninurta’s protestation to his partner in the unfolding crime that, “Valiant Nergal, will you the righteous destroy with the unrighteous?
Will you destroy those who have against you sinned together with those who against you have not sinned?” It was ironic that an Enkite, a clan known for its tender-heartedness and an abiding affinity for mankind, seemed crueler than an Enlilite, a clan known for its cold heartedness and harshness toward mankind
It is also significant that Josephus had to make mention of the fact that the nuclear strike was necessary so that nothing grew from the soil of Sodom and Gomorrah. Why was that important? Well, Marduk had mainstreamed the use of Ormus, or monoatomic gold dust, in Canaan. Thus Canaanite soil was by then very rich in gold dust thanks to irrigation with Ormus-rich Dead Sea water), which in turn made the plants growing in it rich in gold dust too. So in order for the land to be permanently rid of the Ormus richness, it had to be nuked since a nuclear bomb is capable of denaturing the land completely, at least for hundreds of years.
The first target of the nuclear strike was the spaceport. This was in order to ensure Marduk’s forces did not have prompt access to it. Apparently, being the Enlilites’ most strategic place on the planet, the spaceport always had anti-ballistic missiles primed. However, Nergal was concerned that if the spaceport was struck first, it would make the likes of Nabu flee Sodom or Gomorrah in the nick of time. It was in deference to this concern that Ninurta decided to enter the lists. The attacks would be made almost simultaneously.
Ninurta would target the spaceport and Nergal the “sinning cities”. Of the two, it was Nergal who relished the resultant bloodbath. “The people I will make vanish, their souls shall turn to vapour,” he boasted sadistically and this was the son of the benevolent Enki. But was Nabu actually holed up somewhere in the sinning cities? Unbeknownst to Nergal and Ninurta, Nabu was nowhere near Sodom and Gomorrah at that juncture. “While the two argued, Nabu was not sitting still,” say the Sumerian chronicles.
“From his temple (in Borsippa, Sumer), to marshal all his cities he set his step, toward the Great Sea (Mediterranean) he set his course. The Great Sea he entered, sat upon a throne that was not his.” Nabu was not only converting the western cities: he was taking over the Mediterranean islands and setting himself up as their ruler, convinced in his heart of hearts that it was just a matter of time before his father Marduk was enthroned as the God of Earth!
GIBIL TIPS MARDUK ON IMMINENT DISASTER
Nergal was so eager to detonate the bomb that even before Ninurta had reported to him regarding the findings of his spies during the visitation on Lot, he had already left for Africa to commence on the process of activating the bombs. The nuclear bombs were kept somewhere in Africa in an underground bunker in the territory of Gibil, Enki’s third son.
The Enlilites were so secretive that not even Gibil was aware a site in his domain had been used to stash weapons of mass destruction. The Sumerian records say the bombs were seven in total but there must have been many more: seven was simply the number that was requisitioned to Nergal. The moment Gibil got wind of the catastrophe what was looming over Canaan, he immediately contacted Marduk in Babylon and asked him to rush forth pronto.
The Anunnaki had blindingly fast flying saucers and so it took Marduk only a few hours to pitch. Gibil then sat him down and told him Nergal and Ninurta were putting finishing touches to a scheme to nuke Sodom, Gomorrah and the spaceport. “The wickedness of those seven (atom bombs) against thee is being laid," Gibil informed his brother. When Marduk asked him where the weapons were kept so he could foil the machinations of Nergal and Ninurta, Gibil said he didn’t know exactly but they were kept in an underground facility somewhere on his territory.
“Those seven, in the mountain they abide. In a cavity inside the earth they dwell. From there, with a brilliance they will rush forth. From earth to heaven, clad with terror.” An alarmed Marduk, who was hearing this for the first time, grew frantic: he decided to go and see his all-knowing father Enki as there was a chance he knew where the bombs were hidden. "To his father Enki's house he Marduk entered," the Sumerian records say.
It was night time when Marduk touched down at Eridu and an aging Enki was reclining on a couch right in his bed chamber. "My father," Marduk said, "Gibil this word hath spoken to me: of the coming of the seven [weapons] he has found out." Marduk proceeded to beseech his father to help him find the abominable underground arsenal where the bombs were kept. "Their place to search out, do hasten thou!" Sadly, not even the phenomenally brilliant Enki had an idea, not even a viable guess.
IT WAS TIBBETS AND SWEENEY, ENOLA GAY AND BOCKSCAR
Somehow – it is not specified how – Marduk managed to get in touch with Nergal and demanded to know exactly what he and the Enlilites were up to. Nergal neither denied nor confirmed the nuclear scheme; instead, he demanded that Marduk at once leave Babylon and renounce his claim to Enlilship immediately. But to Marduk, that simply was inconceivable: as far as he was concerned, nothing in the universe could stand in the way of his ascendancy to the Lordship of Earth.
Arriving in Africa at the WMD site, Ninurta found that an all-too-eager Nergal had already “primed the seven awesome weapons with their poisons (nuclear warheads)”. Nergal was even pacing up and down, muttering to himself that, “I’ll squash Nabu like a caged bird”. Nergal was firmly of the belief that Nabu was right in Sodom or Gomorrah and was busy converting people to his cause.
The first thing the two did was to send radio messages to all the Enlilite gods that by daybreak the following morning, they should all be out of Canaan. This message was primarily aimed at Nannar-Sin, Utu-Shamash, and Ninmah. Sin had a home in Canaan; Ninmah had a luxurious pad atop a mountain not far from the spaceport; and Shamash as spaceport commander was regularly found there too.
Next, they sent word to Tilmun, the spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula, that all the Anunnaki who worked there should have deserted it by daybreak the following morning. “The two (Nergal and Ninurta), incited to commit the evil, made its guardians (the spaceport Anunnaki) stand aside,” say the Sumerian records. “The gods of that place (Shamash and Ninmah) abandoned it: its protectors went up to the heights of heaven (Mars or Earth’s orbit).” By day end, the duo had received the all-clear message.
It was game, set, and match. Early the following morning, a long while before dawn, Nergal and Ninurta climbed into their bomb-bearing fighter craft Ninurta and jetted off. “Behind him Nergal followed,” the Sumerian annals relate. If Nergal was Lt. Colonel Paul Tibbets, who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945, and Ninurta was Major-General Charles Sweeney, who dropped his on Nagasaki, then Nergal’s craft was the infamous Enola Gay and Ninurta’s was the Bockscar.
As per the agreed sequence of assaults, the first target was the spaceport, “its command complex hidden in the Mount Most Supreme (Mount Mashu), its landing fields spread in the adjoining great plain”. The two bombers followed each other before they split ways. “To Mount Mashu Ninurta departed, behind him Nergal followed. The Mount and the plain, in the heart of the Fourth Region, Ninurta from the skies surveyed.”
As the two parted company, Ninurta radioed Nergal to bolster up his spirits in case they were now flagging. Then with a “squeezing in his heart”, Ninurta zeroed in on Mount Mashu. Meanwhile, following the aviation path what was known as the King’s Highway, Nergal set course for Sodom. “To the verdant valleys of the five cities he flew.”
ATOM BOMBS RAIN ON CANAAN AND SINAI PENINSULA
The offensive pace was set not by Nergal but by Ninurta. Equipped with only two bombs, he made two strikes within minutes of each other. “Then the first terror weapon from the skies Ninurta let loose. The top of Mount Mashu with a flash it sliced off, the mount's innards in an instant it melted. That which was raised toward Anu to launch was caused to wither, its face was made to fade away, its place was made desolate.”
The second strike was aimed at the vicinities of the spaceport. “Above the Place of the Celestial Chariots spaceport), the second weapon he unleashed. With a brilliance of seven suns the plain's rocks into a gushing wound were made … The Spaceport was obliterated, the mount within which its controls were hidden smashed, the plain that served its runways obliterated.” Having accomplished his macabre deed, Ninurta then raised his hand as he sat in his one-man cockpit and shouted, “It is done!”
It was now Nergal’s turn, which came just within seconds of the Ninurta deviltry as per their synchronized timings. “Over the five cities, one after the other, Nergal upon each from the skies a terror weapon sent,” the Sumerian records inform us. “Emulating Ninurta, the cities he finished off, to desolation he overturned them.” Only hours later, as the first rays of the morning sun appeared, General Abraham was stupefied by what he saw when he emerged from a slumber which never was.
"And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood facing Yahweh, and he looked in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the region of the Plain; and he beheld there smoke rising from the earth as the smoke of a furnace." The work of Erra the Annihilator (as Nergal came to be know henceforth) and Ishum the Scorcher (as Ninurta came to be known from that dark day onwards) was hard to process. But the blame ultimately lay neither on Nergal nor Ninurta.
It was on the “god” who had okayed the perpetration of this unconscionable evil, the god who “sat enthroned in loftiness” , who was “consumed with anger” at the Enkite gods whose only sin was to persist in their rightful claim to rule the planet. This god was Enlil. In the Bible, he’s known as Jehovah, the god Christians worship day and night for his “loving kindness”, for his “tender mercies”. This Earth, My Brother …
NEXT WEEK: THE NUCLEAR AFTERMATH
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GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
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“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams had a sudden premonition that pointed to Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.”
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
“On 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General, was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” Well, she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, “I have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.”
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome. It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law, had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction. Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodi’s apartment after the crash, has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossi’s sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet box”.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
‘The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of one’s belief in Allah’s oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a ‘full service’. This ‘service’ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ‘rest’ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allah’s commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: “On a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: ‘I am fasting!’”
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one year’s end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich one’s conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.