Severe rains bucketed down on central Europe, Africa, Shanghai and the U.S. Carolinas this week, underscoring the extreme ways in which climate change is altering the weather.

In April, the two countries agreed to bolster economic relations before implementing a naval facility for the Russian army on Sudan’s Red Sea coastline.

The death toll was rising in Central European countries on Sunday after days of heavy rains caused widespread flooding and forced mass evacuations.

Two rival political entities are vying for influence over key institutions like the central bank and the National Oil Corporation.  A rolling crisis over control of the central bank has paralyzed the economy and sparked new fears of conflict.

As two dozen members of Jamaica’s military and police forces prepare to arrive in Port-au-Prince on Thursday to begin their country’s participation in an armed security mission in Haiti, the international community is reiterating the call for a surge in assistance to the non-United Nations security mission.

Benin, Ivory Coast and Ghana are some of the countries involved as AFRICOM begins to “reset and recalibrate some of our assets,” AFRICOM commander Michael Langley said.

The Kenya-led police force mission in Haiti remains well below its envisioned 2,500 personnel, seriously underfunded and has yet to make a major impact against armed gangs.

The massive typhoon that churned ashore in southern Japan became a tropical storm by Friday but didn’t move far from its beachhead.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been making efforts to halt fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, with little progress. The conflict has displaced more than a million and triggered ethnically driven massacres in Sudan’s Darfur region.

A Navy proposal to put more than a dozen support ships out of service to ease a crippling shortage of qualified civilian mariners could damage U.S. efforts to counter its competitors in Africa and the Middle East, naval analysts say.