In the World

SAVAR, Bangladesh - With time running out to save workers still trapped in a collapsed garment factory building, rescuers dug through mangled metal and concrete Friday and found more survivors - but also more corpses that pushed the death toll past 300.

Wailing, angry relatives fought with police who held them back from the wrecked, eight-story Rana Plaza building, as search-and-rescue operations went on more than two days after the structure crumbled.

Amid the cries for help and the smell of decaying bodies, the rescue of 18-year-old Mussamat Anna came at a high cost: Emergency crews cut off the garment worker's mangled right hand to pull her free from the debris Thursday night.

More than 40 survivors were found late Friday evening at the Rana Plaza, said fire service inspector Shafiqul Islam, who searched the building. Through holes in the structure, he gave them water and juice packs to combat dehydration in the stifling heat and humidity. "They are alive, they are trapped, but most of them are safe. We need to cut through debris and walls to bring them out," Islam said. - AP

GAO, Mali - France's defense minister reaffirmed Friday that his country will keep 1,000 troops in Mali to fight radical Islamic militants even after the arrival later this year of more than 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

In a visit to the volatile northeastern city of Gao, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian addressed reporters a day after the U.N. Security Council authorized the deployment of the peacekeeping force.

"From now on we are in the postwar phase. The U.N. resolution adopted yesterday will allow for the arrival of a force to stabilize the country," he told reporters. "But France will keep about 1,000 soldiers to carry on with military operations."

During Le Drian's visit, he met with the country's interim president as well as with Gen. Ibrahim Dahrou Dembele to discuss efforts to train the Malian military. - AP

BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers backed by tanks retook control of a Sunni town north of Baghdad on Friday after gunmen withdrew without a fight, although violence erupted at three Sunni mosques and clerics called for the formation of a tribal army to protect Sunni cities.

The Sunni gunmen had seized Suleiman Beg on Thursday after a firefight with security forces, one in a string of incidents that have killed more than 170 people in a spate of violence in Sunni Muslim towns over the last four days.

The growing turmoil prompted Martin Kobler, the top U.N. official in Iraq, on Friday to warn that the country is "at a crossroads." - AP