Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic paid his respects to the Muslim victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, months after he was chased from a ceremony in the Bosnian town by an angry stone-throwing crowd.
Australia marked 30 years since the world's largest monolith Uluru was returned to its traditional Aboriginal owners with the government admitting it has not lived up to commitments made back then.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that it has picked up no "specific or credible threats" linked to the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Pakistan marked the 50th anniversary of its second war with arch-rival India, weeks after the two nuclear powers faced off in some of their deadliest skirmishes for over a decade.
Vietnam's president urged further modernisation of the armed forces in the face of growing maritime territorial disputes as the nation celebrated 70 years since it declared independence from France.
Former president George W. Bush, who faced fierce criticism for the botched government response to Hurricane Katrina, returned to New Orleans to mark the storm's 10th anniversary.
Vietnam said it will free more than 18,200 prisoners to mark its independence day celebrations, but political activists will be excluded from the country's second biggest-ever amnesty.
A Chinese newspaper with close ties to the ruling Communist Party slammed Japan for commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima without highlighting its own wartime aggression.
Thousands of people were pouring into Srebrenica to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Muslims in the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II.
A convoy carrying the coffins of 136 newly-identified Srebrenica victims arrived in the Bosnian town where the massacre took place, for their burial on the 20th anniversary.