Good Morning Australia!! - A powerful earthquake rocks Japan's northern city Sapporo - A high-rise fire claims the lives of three firefighters - Britain names the Russian spies behind the Novichok attack - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Australia is now a signatory to a declaration recognizing that climate change is the biggest threat to the people of the Pacific.  "Recognising that climate change presents the single greatest threat to the livelihood, security and well-being of Pacific people, leaders reaffirmed the importance of immediate urgent action to combat climate change," read the communique, which was issued at the end of the Pacific Islands Forum at Nauru.  The document, signed by Foreign Minister Marise Payne, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and representatives from 17 other island nations, also calls on the US to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which seeks to stop climate change by limiting carbon output.

British prosecutors named two Russian nations as suspects in the Novichok poisoning case in the UK.  Crown prosecutors obtained a European arrest warrant for Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, believed to Russian intelligence agents.  Officials say they used the Russian-made nerve agent called Novichok to try and killed ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury in March; the attack has been linked to the death of Dawn Sturgess in a nearby town on 30 June, possibly from a carelessly discarded container of the poison.  Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament that the attack was "almost certainly" approved at a high level in Moscow; Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the use of military-grade nerve agent on the streets of Britain was an "outrage and beyond reckless".

A horror fire in a Johannesburg high rise killed three firefighters in the South African metropolis.  One of the men slipped and fell from the 23rd floor of the Bank of Lisbon building where the fire occurred, while the other two were trapped in the burning portion which included some government offices.  Local infrastructure official Jacob Mamabolo said the building was only 21 percent complaint with the fire code:  "The building simply does not comply with safety and health regulations.  Government officials will stay at home until there is a safe building to relocate them to," Mamabolo told reporters.

Daylight will reveal more about the strong earthquakes that slapped Sapporo, home of the beer on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido.  The USGS said a magnitude 6.6 quake hit at 3:08 AM local, followed by a 5.3 a few minutes later.  Early video from the national broadcaster NHK showed some debris on the roads and sidewalks, and airplanes rocking back and forth at New Chitose Airport.  Initial reports indicate that only buildings with emergency power have lights; the rest of the northern city was blacked out.

Kansai International Airport on a man-made island off Osaka is still closed today after it was submerged by the storm surge from Typhoon Jebi, known as Typhoon 21 in Japan.  About 3,000 airport workers and stranded passengers have been evacuated along the half of the causeway that wasn't damaged by an unmoored freighter that crashed into the bridge, causing severe damage.  Some of the World Heritage temples and shrines in Kyoto and Nara in the Kansai region sustained damage in the storm.

Officials at JFK International Airport in New York quarantined an Emirates Airlines flight from Dubai after several passengers complained of flu-like symptoms.  The plane had made a stop a Mecca, where there is a flu outbreak.  Out of 521 passengers, 19 were sick.

Israel is closing its embassy and pulling its ambassador out of Paraguay after that South American country decided to return its embassy in Israel to Tel Aviv after briefly relocating to Jerusalem.  "Paraguay wants to contribute to an intensification of regional diplomatic efforts to achieve a broad, fair and lasting peace in the Middle East," said Foreign Minister Luis Alberto Castiglioni.  The Palestinian Authority loved the idea and planned to open an embassy in Asuncion.  Paraguay and Guatemala followed Donald Trump in relocating their embassies to the disputed city of Jerusalem earlier this year; experts in Middle East policy said that was an awful idea because it removed the incentive to solve all of the other territorial issues before rewarding Israel and the Palestinians with their desired capitals.