Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Alexander Garden to commemorate the 84th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi’s invasion of the Soviet Union.

Defence Minister also laid flowers at the Eternal Flame. The participants observed a minute of silence in memory of defenders of the Fatherland. The event continued with a guard of honour squad and a military band marching past the national memorial of military glory.

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Pope Leo XIV said humanity is crying out for peace, and called for an end to wars. Each member of the international community has the moral responsibility to end the tragedy of war, before it becomes an irreparable chasm," the pontiff says during his weekly Angelus prayer at the Vatican. The pope also called on the world not to forget the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

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To celebrate the 28th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Hong Kong Garrison held an open day event starting on Saturday. The national flag-raising ceremony was held on Saturday. 

After the flag-raising ceremony, the PLA HK Garrison prepared various performances such as the military band formation, combat performance, and helicopter show. During the two-day event, the Chinese PLA Hong Kong Garrison’s Ngong Shuen Chau Barracks, Shek Kong Barracks and San Wai Barracks will be open to the public, which allows Hong Kong residents to know more about the military life and the motherland.

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The 15th Chinese peacekeeping engineer contingent to South Sudan on Friday donated educational supplies, sports equipment and daily necessities to students and teachers of a local girls’ primary school in Wau, northwest of the country.

Located near the peacekeepers’ camp, the school has faced severe shortages of essential supplies due to prolonged instability in the region. These donations aim to improve the school’s teaching and recreational facilities, supporting both education and daily needs. The engineering contingent also treated the teachers and students with musical performances, including guitar shows.

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A high-level Indian delegation led by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri is in Ireland to attend the 40th anniversary memorial of the Air India Kanishka bombing at the Ahakista Memorial in Cork.

The memorial service is held on Monday in the presence of Ireland and Canadian Prime Ministers and several other international dignitaries. This solemn event not only commemorates the terror attack, but also reinforces the global commitment against terrorism.

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Pakistan’s annual Shandur Polo Festival  held at 12,000–12,500 ft on the Shandur Pass in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the world’s highest polo tournament. Dubbed the “Roof of the World,” this three-day extravaganza brings together teams from Chitral and Gilgit‑Baltistan, engaging in bare‑knuckle, freestyle mountain polo a rugged form of the sport with few rules.  

The event kicked off on June 20, a date moved earlier to respect Muharram. The festival features more than just polo: expect paragliding, folk music & dancing, local handicrafts, food stalls, and a camping village at altitude. In essence, Shandur is more than a polo tournament; it’s a cultural phenomenon, a tourism driver, and a test of endurance played out on the planet’s highest polo field.

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Visitors to Japanese valley cool down with water-streamed noodles. People in Japan’s western prefecture of Okayama have beaten the sweltering heat by a unique way savoring cold noodles which flow down chutes in water. 

A restaurant in the city of Maniwa offers the summer culinary tradition called “nagashi-somen.” Customers use chopsticks to scoop up thin noodles from slides, dunk them into broth and slurp them up. The eatery, with a history of more than four decades, sits in the Yamanori Valley, a popular summer retreat. It began this year’s business on Saturday.  

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Two Air Self-Defense Force aircraft have left for Djibouti to prepare for a possible evacuation of Japanese nationals in Israel and Iran. The C-2 transport planes left the Miho Air Base in Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, on Saturday. Defense Minister Nakatani Gen on Thursday ordered the dispatch of the aircraft to the African country to be on standby amid the conflict between Israel and Iran.

The Defense Ministry says it will work closely with the foreign and other relevant ministries with a strong sense of urgency to do everything it can to secure the safety of Japanese citizens abroad. The Japanese government has been helping its citizens and their families in Israel and Iran leave by land. The government had assisted about 90 people as of Friday.

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China on Saturday began constructing two advanced telescopes at the Lenghu Astronomical Observation Base in Qinghai Province, including a groundbreaking 4.2-meter dedicated astrometric telescope for precise solar system measurements.

The telescope, developed by the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, represents China’s first single-mirror astronomical telescope with an aperture exceeding 4 meters.

Its exceptional features include ultra-low distortion imaging, extremely high positioning accuracy, and deep detection limits unmatched by conventional telescopes. The telescope’s primary mission involves conducting high-precision measurements of faint moving objects within the solar system.

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Hundreds of couples tied the knot on Amsterdam’s A10 highway on Saturday, as the Dutch capital marked its 750th anniversary with a one-day festival that turned the city’s busy ring road into a pedestrian-only celebration. The event, called “Op de Ring,” saw 400 couples marry in temporary tents set up on the closed highway, in a mass wedding ceremony that mixed civic pride with personal vows.

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