The race to become Japan`s next prime minister kicked off Thursday with a record nine candidates including the son of a former premier and a nationalist vying to be the country`s first woman leader. Whoever wins the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership contest on September 27 will succeed unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose three-year term was tarnished by scandals while voters struggled with inflation.

American firms in China are grappling with an unprecedented web of challenges, a business group said Thursday, as economic woes and geopolitical tensions drag optimism and profitability to all-time lows. The American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai report comes just a day after a European one highlighted what it said was the growing difficulty of doing business in China, and warned "a tipping point" was being reached.

An Israeli air strike hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, with the Hamas-run territory`s civil defence agency reporting that 18 people were killed, including UN staffers. The Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, already hit several times during the war, was struck again on Wednesday, killing 18 people, including two members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said Gaza`s civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

 A flash flood swept away an entire hamlet in northern Vietnam, killing 30 people and leaving dozens missing as deaths from a typhoon and its aftermath climbed to 155 on Wednesday. Vietnamese state broadcaster VTV said the torrent of water gushing down from a mountain in Lao Cai province Tuesday buried Lang Nu hamlet with 35 families in mud and debris.