A traditional Iranian table for breaking the fast.

Ramadan, deemed the best of all months by Muslims, has received a heartfelt welcome from across the world for infusing a spiritual atmosphere.
Muslims all over the world have embarked on a month of reflection, purification and abstinence from eating, drinking and sex from dawn to sunset.
The world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, around one-fifth of humanity, started this year’s fasting season on Monday or Tuesday, and it is obligatory on all adult and physically fit believers, reported Todayszaman.com.

Great Opportunity
The name Ramadan is derived from the Arabic word “ramida“ or “ar-ramad,“ which means intense scorching heat and dryness of the ground. Its proper observance helps cleanse one’s soul of all impurities, sins and liabilities.
Months on the lunar calendar begin with the sighting of the first crescent. Since the Islamic lunar calendar is 11 to 12 days shorter than the solar calendar, Ramadan moves forward through the seasons.
The method of celebrating Ramadan differs from one region to the other but its essential spirit remains the same. It is a time of spiritual revelation.
During this holy month, Muslims are expected to put more efforts into refraining from anger, envy, greed, lust, backbiting and lies, and encouraged to read the holy Qur’an.
Even living in non-Muslim countries is not a hindrance to observing Ramadan. Rather, it is an occasion of Muslims reaching out and informing their neighbors about the customs and traditions of the holy month.
The month of Ramadan, which is celebrated across the world with great enthusiasm, offers a great opportunity to remove all cultural and geographical obstacles to the unification of the global Muslim community around common sacred values.

Benefits
The fast is intended to be an act of deep personal worship in which Muslims seek a heightened level of closeness to God and experience the deprivations facing the poor and the needy for a month.
On the one hand, the act of fasting helps redirect the heart away from worldly activities, its purpose being to cleanse the inner soul and free it of all evil feelings and activities disliked by God. The proper observation of the fast induces a feeling of peace and calm, as well as self-discipline.
Muslims are advised to conduct a review of their lives in light of Islamic teachings during this month. They are recommended to forgive those who wronged or hurt them, improve ties with family and friends, refrain from bad deeds and repent for wrongdoings. In this way, Muslims purify their souls, lives, thoughts and feelings.
On the other hand, this abstinence from pleasures throughout Ramadan helps refocus attention on the divine duties entrusted upon Muslims toward others. It encourages feelings of sympathy toward the less fortunate and acts of generosity, charity and sacrifice.
During this month, prayers and self-accountability are emphasized and all obligatory religious observances are encouraged. Therefore, fasting is not merely a physical act; it is also an act of reviving one’s commitment toward God, oneself and the society.

Exceptions
Though fasting is mandatory from adolescence onward, young children are generally willing to observe the fast with their elders. They look forward to the excitement of breaking their fasts with special meals.
Pregnant women, the ill, travelers--provided they decide to stay at a place for at least 10 days--and children who have not reached the age of puberty are all exempted from fasting. However, adults who are exempted must compensate by observing the Ramadan fasts later when their conditions become normal.
Ramadan promotes peace, fraternity and tolerance, which enables Muslims to lead better lives and contribute to the society’s welfare and prosperity.

Cambodia’s government is seeking to register a notorious Khmer Rouge prison and its archives at UNESCO.
The application to help preserve archive material from “S-21“ prison, now site of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, was submitted to UNESCO by government officials last Friday, AFP reported.
The archive contains over 5,000 photographs of the more than 15,000 prisoners, as well as biographical records of Khmer Rouge officials and inmates, torture instruments and written confessions, said a copy of the application to UNESCO’s Memory of the World program.
“Undoubtedly crucial as evidence to be used in the forthcoming Khmer Rouge trial, the archive is also an essential part of Cambodia’s recent history,“ it said.
“Its significance as a part of the Memory of the World stems from its testament to man’s inhumanity to man and its documentation of one of the most extreme examples of crimes against humanity in the 20th century with a major impact on world history.“
The high school turned torture center is still littered with reminders of its brutal past, such as shackles and bare metal bed frames on which the corpses of inmates were found by invading Vietnamese soldiers in 1979.
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Archive was registered by UNESCO’s Memory of the World for Asia and the Pacific region last February in a step towards international recognition.
The prison was run by Kaing Guek Eav--better known as Duch--who is among five Khmer Rouge leaders detained by the UN-backed court for crimes committed during the regime’s 1975-79 rule.
Duch’s trial for crimes against humanity is expected to begin in October.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation or overwork as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian society to realize an agrarian utopia.

A troubling one-year spike in youth suicides in the United States reported last year is not a fluke and should be taken seriously, US researchers said on Tuesday.
They analyzed the most recent youth suicide data and found that while rates fell about 5 percent in 2005 after a large increase in 2004, they still were far higher than would have been expected based on historical trends, Reuters reported.
“While there has been a decline in 2005, it hasn’t brought us back to where we would expect rates to be,“ said Jeff Bridge of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Last year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an 18-percent increase in suicide rates for Americans under age 19 in 2004, reversing more than a decade of declines.
Because the 2004 increase in youth suicides coincided with strict government warnings about the use of antidepressants in teenagers and adolescents, some doctors suspect this may be the reason behind the spike.
Depression is the leading cause of suicide, which is the third-biggest killer of children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24.

Parents refusing to let their children have a television or computer in their bedroom can now cite a study showing these devices make youngsters sleep less during the school-year.
A joint study by the University of Haifa and Jezreel Valley College found that middle school children with a TV or computer in their room went to sleep half an hour later on average while still waking up at the same time, Reuters reported.
They were found to also watch an hour more of TV a day and spend an hour longer on their computer, playing more computer games and surfing the Internet more than their peers.
The research focused on 444 middle school pupils with an average age of 14 who were asked about their sleep habits, use of computer and television, and their eating habits.