Rains and winds were growing in southern South Korea Wednesday as a tropical storm drew closer to the Korean Peninsula, where it was forecast to slam into major urban areas.

Dozens of flights and ferry services were grounded and tens of thousands of fishing vessels evacuated to ports as government officials raised concern about potentially huge damages from flooding, landslides and tidal waves triggered by the typhoon-strength winds.

Eight Amazon nations called on industrialized countries to do more to help preserve the world's largest rainforest as they met at a major summit in Brazil to chart a common course on how to combat climate change.

The leaders of South American nations that are home to the Amazon, meeting at a two-day summit in the city of Belem that ends Wednesday, said the task of stopping the destruction of the rainforest can't fall to just a few when the crisis has been caused by so many.

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Nino have an accomplice in fueling this summer's record-shattering heat.

The European climate agency Copernicus reported that July was one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) hotter than the old record. That's a bump in heat that is so recent and so big, especially in the oceans and even more so in the North Atlantic, that scientists are split on whether something else could be at work.

Nagasaki marked the 78th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city Wednesday with the mayor urging world powers to abolish nuclear weapons, saying nuclear deterrence also increases risks of nuclear war.

Shiro Suzuki made the remark after the Group of Seven industrial powers adopted a separate document on nuclear disarmament in May that called for using nuclear weapons as deterrence.

Russian air defenses shot down two drones aimed at Moscow overnight, officials said Wednesday, in what they described as Ukraine's latest attempt to strike the Russian capital in an apparent campaign to unnerve Muscovites and take the war to Russia.

The drones were intercepted on their approach to Moscow and there were no casualties, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The Russian Defense Ministry described it as a "terrorist attack."

The death toll from recent flooding in China's capital rose to 33, including five rescuers, and another 18 people are missing, officials said Wednesday, as much of the country's north remains threatened by unusually heavy rainfall.

Days of heavy rain hit areas in the city's mountainous western outskirts especially hard, causing the collapse of 59,000 homes, damage to almost 150,000 others and flooding of more than 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of cropland, according to the city government.

The United Nations announced late Tuesday that an agreement had been reached with Syria to reopen the main border crossing from Turkey to its rebel-held northwest for six months.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the "understanding" reached following talks between U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and Syrian officials, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

The traditional elite have been cut down to size at the Women's World Cup.

That has been the standout theme as a tournament that has already set records for attendance and goals scored enters the quarterfinals stage, and it has made for high drama.

As a military junta in Niger marked two weeks in power Wednesday, its leaders are appointing a government and rejecting calls for negotiation in what analysts described as an attempt to entrench their power and show that they're serious about governing the West Africa country in the face of an escalating regional crisis.

The junta has named a new prime minister and made a slew of other new cabinet appointments. They also refused to admit mediation teams that planned to come Tuesday from the United Nations, the African Union, and West African regional bloc ECOWAS, citing "evident reasons of security in this atmosphere of menace," according to a letter seen by The Associated Press.

The Syrian government decided to increase prices of drugs by 50%, the head of the pharmacies syndicate in Damascus said Tuesday, as the Syrian pound hit new a low in recent days.

Hassan Derwan did not give a reason for the price hike in his interview with the pro-government daily Al-Watan. Earlier this year, prices were raised by between 50% and 80%.