Meeting in Busan, South Korea, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee added 25 properties to the World Heritage List on July 27. Notable additions include the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, France; Iran's Alamut Castle and related fortifications; India's ancient Buddhist site at Sarnath, where the Buddha delivered his first sermon; Greece's Mount Olympus, the year's only mixed cultural-and-natural listing; Japan's ancient capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara; and the modernist Aalto Works in Finland.
Three sites were fast-tracked onto the List of World Heritage in Danger because of conflict or instability: the Boma-Badingilo migratory landscape in South Sudan, Mount Amel's castles in Lebanon, and the ancient city of Sebastia in the West Bank. The full list is at whc.unesco.org.