Brazil arrests sect leader in sex case

Brazil arrests sect leader in sex case

RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilian authorities say they’ve captured an American sect leader wanted for sex crimes against girls in the United States and who is on the U.S. marshals’ most-wanted list.

A statement posted Saturday on the website of the Public Security Secretariat for the Rio Grande do Norte state government confirms the arrest of Victor Arden Barnard.

Barnard faces 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct related to two young women who said they were abused for nearly a decade at his secluded River Road Fellowship in Minnesota.

Brazilian police did not immediately return multiple telephone calls seeking more details about his arrest Friday night in Brazil.

Attacks kill 37 in Iraq

BAGHDAD

A series of attacks targeting public places and Shiite militia checkpoints in and north of Iraq’s capital killed 37 people Saturday, authorities said. The first bombs exploded near the market in the town of Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 50, police and hospital officials said.

Two suicide car bombers later attacked checkpoints manned by Shiite militiamen near Samarra, killing 16 Shiite fighters and wounding 31, authorities said. Three other bombs killed an addition 10 people, police said.

Court declares Hamas ‘terrorist organization’

CAIRO

An Egyptian court declared Hamas a “terrorist organization” Saturday, further isolating the blockaded rulers of the Gaza Strip once openly welcomed by the country’s toppled Islamist-dominated government.

The ruling is unlikely to have any immediate effect on Hamas, still reeling from last summer’s war with Israel and choked by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade set up in 2007. Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’ No. 2 leader, is based in Cairo and is receiving medical treatment there, members of the group say.

The move underlines Egypt’s increasing hostility to Hamas, which the court blamed for violence in the country’s restive Sinai Peninsula. The secretive movement, founded in Gaza in 1987 as an offshoot of the region’s Egyptian-originated Muslim Brotherhood, faces a growing cash crunch and has yet to lay out a strategy to extract Gaza from its increasingly dire situation.

15 tons of pot seized

san diego

Federal authorities have seized more than 15 tons of marijuana in a near-record bust at a border crossing in Southern California.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that more than 1,200 packages of marijuana valued at nearly $19 million were seized last week from a tractor-trailer carrying mattresses and cushions at the Otay Mesa border crossing. Authorities arrested the truck’s 46-year-old driver.

Missionaries freed

Four North Dakota missionaries were released by Venezuelan authorities Saturday after being detained and questioned for several days, a pastor at their church said.

Bruce Dick, lead pastor at Bethel Evangelical Free Church in Devils Lake, said the three men and one woman were released Saturday morning after being in custody since Wednesday.

U.S. Embassy Press Director Glenn Guimond said the missionaries boarded a plane out of the country and would not be allowed back for two years.

It was unclear Saturday why the missionaries were detained by Venezuelan authorities, and Dick said he couldn’t comment until he spoke with them. He said they flew to Aruba, where they planned to rest for at least a day.

Associated Press