Muslims around the world are observing Ramadan, the holiest month on the Islamic calendar.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. The start of the holiday is determined by the appearance of the new moon.

Ramadan marks the time more than 1,400 years ago when Muslims believe the words of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Mohammed.

During Ramadan, Muslims are expected to fast and also to abstain from smoking and sex from dawn until sunset. Some Muslims adhere to a broader definition of self-restraint that includes focusing on a re-evaluation of their lives.

Ramadan ends with a celebration called Eid al-Fitr.

Syrian activists say soldiers backed by tanks have fired on citizens during a raid in the flashpoint city of Hama, killing at least 45 people.

Activists say the sound of machine guns and tank shells echoed across the city Sunday. Medical officials say hospitals are overrun with scores of wounded people and are in desperate need of blood donations. The death toll is likely to rise.

Troops reportedly started their attack at dawn Sunday, firing randomly and breaking down road blocks erected by civilians to keep troops out of the city.

Citizens have held large protests against President Bashar al-Assad in Hama, an important city in the history of Syrian resistance. In 1982, President Bashar al-Assad's father used military force to silence a rebellion there, killing thousands.

A U.S. embassy official in Syria condemned Sunday's attacks in Hama, calling it “warfare” against the Syrian people. France also condemned the attack.

In addition to criticizing the assault, former Lebanese President Saad Hariri said “silence on the international and Arab levels” about the situation in Syria was only leading to the loss of more Syrian lives.

Meanwhile, in the country's south, residents say security forces killed three people and wounded several others as they stormed the village of al-Hirak. They say forces also arrested more than 100 people in the early Sunday raid.

Activists say President Assad is trying to crush the largely peaceful uprisings against his government that broke out across much of the country in March.

Rights groups say Syrian forces have killed at least 1,600 civilians during the government's crackdown on dissent. The government has blamed much of the violence on terrorists and militants who it says have killed hundreds of security personnel.

It is hard to verify accounts of the unrest in Syria because the government has barred most foreign media from reporting and traveling freely in the country.

Two passenger trains collided head-on Sunday in the east of India, killing at least one person. The number of injured is unclear, and more casualties are feared.

The accident occurred in West Bengal province. The engine of the Guwahati-Bangalore express derailed as it collided with a local train. The two engines then caught fire.

After the initial collision, additional train carriages reportedly derailed. Rescue officials have been rushed to the scene.

Sunday's crash comes three weeks after two passenger trains derailed in separate incidents on the same day, leaving at least 67 people dead and about 200 others injured. All of the fatalities occurred in a derailment in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Ukraine is observing a day of mourning on Sunday for 37 miners killed in accidents at two coal pits in the country's industrial east.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich ordered state flags to be lowered to half mast, while relatives held the first funerals for the victims of Friday's twin disasters, the country's deadliest since 2007.

Authorities also recovered the bodies of the last missing miners at the two sites. In one accident, a suspected methane gas explosion shook a mine in the Lugansk region, killing 26 workers. In the other accident, 11 miners were killed when their elevator collapsed at a pit in the neighboring Donetsk region.

Mr. Yanukovich has called for a government commission to investigate the accidents.

Ukraine's coal mines are among the world's most dangerous because of outdated equipment and disregard for safety regulations.

Witnesses say a member of Somalia's parliament has been shot and killed in the capital, Mogadishu.

Khalif Jire Warfaa was killed Sunday in Mogadishu's Hamar Weyne district.

Another member of parliament, who witnessed the shooting, tells VOA that two gunmen wearing masks opened fire on Warfaa as he came out of the Marwaas mosque.

The lawmaker who spoke with VOA asked not to be identified.

The Marwaas mosque is located in a government-controlled part of Mogadishu that has been peaceful in recent weeks.

Sections of Mogadishu are controlled by the militant Islamist group al-Shabab, which is fighting to topple the Somali government.

There were no other reported injuries from Sunday's shooting, and no immediate claim of responsibility.

A suicide car bombing in southern Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province has killed 12 police officers and a child, the first such major attack in an area where Afghan forces recently took over full security responsibility from NATO-led troops.

A government spokesman in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, said Sunday's blast occurred outside the city's heavily guarded police headquarters. He said three civilians were among the dozen people wounded.

Resurgent Taliban militants, fighting to drive out foreign forces from Afghanistan and overthrow President Hamid Karzai's government, have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Security for Lashkar Gah was handed over to Afghan troops less than two weeks ago, part of the first stage of a plan to have all of Afghanistan under the oversight of Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.

Sunday's assault is the latest in a string of regional attacks that have included the assassination of numerous high-profile officials, such as Mr. Karzai's half-brother and the mayor of neighboring Kandahar province.

The blast comes as the top U.S. military officer meets with commanders and troops in southern Afghanistan on the second day of an unannounced visit.

Admiral Mike Mullen said Sunday the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Corps General John Allen, is working on plans for the initial withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from the country by the end of the year. He said General Allen has until mid-October to submit his plan.

Military officials say the pullout may hinge on whether the latest surge in attacks continues through the holy month of Ramadan, which starts Monday. Mullen says Taliban leaders are reportedly pushing for an increase in violence through Ramadan and may leave their fighters in the country while top commanders spend at least part of the holy month in neighboring Pakistan.

President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 23,000 U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer. Mullen noted that Afghan troops are due to increase in size over the timeline of the American withdrawals. There are currently nearly 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, NATO says one of its service members was killed Sunday in a bomb blast in the east.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is offering steps to deal with the economic situation in Israel, one day after the largest turnout for protests demanding the government do something about the rising cost of living.

Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday said he was setting up a committee to open talks with protesters. He told his Cabinet there was “genuine distress” among the public.

About 100,000 people thronged the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other major cities Saturday to demand relief from the high cost of food, fuel and housing. The high prices have created a widening gap between rich and poor.

Protesters are demanding that the government lower taxes, subsidize housing and bring prices down.

Mr. Netanyahu's announcement came as a top financial minister resigned Sunday. Finance Ministry Director General Haim Shani said in a resignation letter that his decision followed long-running disagreements.

Also Sunday, hundreds of Israel's doctors demonstrated in Jerusalem as part of ongoing protests for better working conditions and higher wages. Israel has a socialized medical system, and doctors say they are overworked and underpaid.

The Serbian parliament has passed a resolution calling for more dialogue with Kosovo to reach a compromise in a trade dispute that escalated into deadly violence last week.

Serbian lawmakers approved the resolution early Sunday, with a majority of 181 votes in the 250-member assembly.

The violence erupted late Monday last week, when special forces of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian government seized two border crossings in Serb-dominated northern regions to enforce a ban on imports from Serbia. Kosovo's government imposed the ban earlier this month in retaliation for Serbia's blocking of Kosovo imports.

Northern Kosovo Serbs confronted the ethnic Albanian security forces, triggering an exchange of gunfire that killed one ethnic Albanian policeman and wounded several other people. NATO peacekeepers intervened, taking control of the two border posts on Thursday under an agreement with the Kosovo government, which pulled out its special police.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Sunday he believes the Kosovo government's brief seizure of the crossings is part of a scheme to change northern Kosovo's demographic balance. Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci accuses Belgrade of masterminding the violence.

In remarks to the Serbian lawmakers, Mr. Tadic said Belgrade will not wage a war in response to the unrest and believes there is no alternative to peace. He said previous wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The outbreak of violence in northern Kosovo is one of the most serious in the region since Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia.

All 163 people aboard a Caribbean Airlines jetliner survived when the plane skidded off a wet runway in Georgetown, Guyana, and split in two.

The Boeing 737 was on a flight from New York to the South American nation early Saturday when it overshot the runway and came dangerously close to a 60-meter deep ravine.

Several people were injured, some of them hospitalized.

The cause of the incident is not known. But investigators from the United States and Guyana are analyzing information from the flight data and voice recorders.

The plane had made a brief stop in Trinidad before arriving in Guyana's capital.

In the northern U.S. state of Alaska, four people died when two singe-engine planes collided in mid-air, sending one of them to the ground in a fiery crash.

Though the other plane sustained significant damage, it was able to land safely at the airport in Anchorage.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the incident. It followed a similar in-flight collision earlier in the month, survived by all 13 people aboard the two planes.