SEOUL - The chairman of South Korea's main opposition party resigned yesterday in an effort to pave the way for the nation's liberals to select a single candidate ahead of next month's presidential poll. Lee Hae-chan quit along with several other top officials of the Democratic United Party following calls for internal party reforms seen as necessary for the two liberal presidential hopefuls - DUP candidate Moon Jae-in and software mogul Ahn Cheol-soo - to merge their campaigns. AFP
DHAKA - At least 11 women and children died as a fire swept through one of the biggest slums in the Bangladeshi capital. Officials said the blaze started at a rickshaw garage as thousands of residents of the Boubazaar shanty town were sleeping. A stove or a cigarette end was suspected to have sparked the fire, police said. AFP
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's military has recruited 100 women soldiers in the biggest single intake of ethnic Tamils from the island's former war zone. The women - from the northern district of Kilinochchi, where Tamil Tiger rebels had their political headquarters before they were defeated in 2009 - were enlisted on Saturday. AFP