World Briefs

MEXICO CITY – Soldiers captured one of Mexico's most-wanted smugglers, a man accused of controlling the flow of drugs through the northern city of Monterrey for the powerful Beltran-Leyva cartel, the Mexican army said Wednesday.

Gen. Luis Arturo Oliver said Hector Huerta was detained Tuesday in a Monterrey suburb, along with four men identified as his bodyguards. Soldiers also seized assault rifles and four grenades.

MEXICO CITY – U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the US shares responsibility with Mexico for dealing with the alarming spike in violence along the U. S. -Mexican border.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she said. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians."

She said the administration will work with Mexican authorities to improve security on both sides of the border.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduran lawmakers have asked authorities to stop a religious group led by a man calling himself the "Antichrist" from constructing a spiritual center in the country's capital.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is banned from entering Honduras, but his Growing in Grace Church has 20 offices in the country.

The Puerto Rican native preaches that sin and the devil do not exist, and claims to have 2 million followers in 35 nations — most in Miami, where he lives, and Colombia.

PITHIVIERS, France – Striking French workers for U.S. manufacturer 3M held their boss hostage amid labor talks Wednesday at a plant south of Paris, as anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted around the country.

While the situation at the 3M plant outside Pithiviers was calm, worker rage elsewhere boiled over into an angry march on the presidential palace in Paris and a bonfire of tires set alight by Continental AG employees whose auto parts factory was being shut down.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – New Zealand police charged a woman with abandonment on Wednesday after she secretly gave birth aboard an international flight and dumped the newborn in a garbage can in the plane's bathroom.

Cleaners found the newborn girl still alive amid bloodied paper towels in a toilet trash can. Police Detective Inspector Mark Gutry said the woman was charged with child abandonment, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, and child assault. She could also face a fine of up to US$57,000 and another seven years in prison for allegedly failing to reveal information about her pregnancy, to Immigration authorities.