Levitte made the comments during an interview alongside his British and German counterparts.

German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger said: "The sooner it's closed, the better it will be for the image of the United States, not only as a military and political but also as a moral leader in the world."

The British envoy, Sir David Manning, said: "It's difficult to find the right line to draw between your duties as a government for security and safeguarding liberty, but it is clearly an anomaly and it needs to be dealt with."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday urged the United States to decide on the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, saying it must be shut down " sooner or later."

"I think sooner or later there will be a need to close Guantanamo. I think it will be up to the government to decide, and hopefully to do it as soon as possible," Annan told reporters after a luncheon with Security Council members.

Annan's comments came after a UN report was released in Geneva earlier Thursday calling on Washington "to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

Washington has rejected the UN report with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissing as "flat wrong" the calls for its closure.

About 500 terror suspects are being jailed at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most of whom were captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in 2001, and are being held indefinitely without a trial.

MPs last night seized on the letter as the first formal acknowledgement that British authorities were aware that CIA flights associated with "extraordinary rendition" have travelled through UK airspace.

They said it showed that ministers could no longer claim they had no knowledge of CIA flights that have been linked to the policy of sending terrorist suspects for interrogation in countries that carry out torture.

Nats admitted it had provided a service to the flights after a number of Parliamentary questions to Transport ministers from Sir Menzies Campbell, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats.

The letter, written to Sir Menzies following orders from Transport minister Karen Buck, says that of four aircraft identified from records as having been used by the CIA, "three have received an ATC [air traffic control service] from Nats on a number of occasions in the past five years. We are not prepared to offer a number because we are not confident that such a number would be robust."

The planes are part of a ghost fleet of CIA jets that have been spotted at UK airports since 2001. Nats implies that they have travelled here frequently and may even have travelled under different call signs.

It said the flights may also have used airspace controlled by the Ministry of Defence. Defence ministers have been criticised for refusing to answer questions put down by Sir Menzies about how often the CIA jets have landed at military air bases. Defence minister Adam Ingram said "the information is not recorded centrally".

But the admission by the civil aviation service that CIA aircraft have used UK airspace is the first admission that the authorities and ministers are aware of the flights.

Tony Blair has claimed that he has no knowledge of so-called torture flights coming in and out of the country, and has refused to hold an independent public inquiry.

The flights have been associated with the practice of extraordinary rendition. which involves taking terrorist suspects to foreign prisons and secret jails in Europe. Seventy-six planes used by the CIA are believed to have made stops in Britain since 11 September 2001, at Prestwick, RAF Northolt, Luton and Glasgow.

Last night, Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the letter was a significant admission. "It is significant that a public agency has confirmed the frequency of these flights through UK airports," he said. "More questions remain about their destination and what they contained."

Since the end of World War II the Tracing Service, operating as an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has used the files to help people trace the fates of relatives who disappeared into the murderous vortex of Nazi terror. Now, more than 60 years after the end of the war, the United States says that task is largely done and it is time to open up the archive, copy it so that it can also be stored in other countries and make it available to historians.

"The U.S. government favors opening up all records on the Holocaust," said Edward O'Donnell, the special envoy for Holocaust issues at the State Department. "Our objective is to open the archive, and we will continue to push."

But that push has met a wall of legal and procedural objections — from Charles Biedermann, the Red Cross official who has been director of the Tracing Service for two decades, and from the German and Italian governments. The atmosphere within the 11-nation international commission that oversees the operation has become poisonous.

At meetings to discuss the opening of the archive, German officials have asked whether it is really in anyone's interest to have accusations about particular Jews being murderers or homosexuals made public. Because German privacy laws are much stricter than those in the United States, German authorities are concerned that an opening could lead to lawsuits charging that personal information was handed out illegally.

Wide access to the papers could also provoke new claims for compensation.

"This is a scandal and a big scar on the image of Germany," said Sara Bloomfield, the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which has been eager to secure copies of the files.

Paul Shapiro, the director of advanced Holocaust studies at the museum, accused Germany of "abusing efforts to achieve consensus" and "exerting a stranglehold on the process." He added, "Hiding this record is a form of Holocaust denial."

Such strong words are at odds with the generally positive tenor of German-American relations on Holocaust matters, even through negotiations as elaborate as those that led to Germany's agreement in 2000 to compensate former slave laborers of the Nazis.

Germany is outraged at the suggestion that it may be dragging its feet. "I object to the assertion that we have something to hide or are not forthcoming," said Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to the United States. "That insinuation is false."

The clash has some of its roots in the complex history and labyrinthine legal structure of the Tracing Service. Set up late in the war, it has long been administered under the terms of the 1955 Bonn Agreements, which restored German sovereignty.

That treaty says the facility must "take all reasonable steps to avoid divulging information about a person or persons which might prejudice the interests of the person or persons concerned or of their relatives."

In essence, it confines access to information to the persecuted themselves, their relatives or legal representatives. But the accord also says all of the governments in the 11-nation governing commission have the right to inspect documents. Those countries are the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Israel, Poland and Luxembourg.

Germany and Mr. Biedermann say that for the archives to be opened, the treaty must be amended. That requires a unanimous vote and subsequent approval of national legislatures. The process would take years even if an elusive unanimity could be secured.

"As director, I must fulfill my orders," Mr. Biedermann said. "My superior is the I.C.R.C., my ruling body the 11 governments. If they decide the records can be opened and copies given to other countries, and if the issue of legal liabilities is addressed, of course I will comply. But right now there is no mandate for historical research."

Last month, the director posted a statement, now withdrawn, on the Tracing Service's Web site, saying that handing over copies of the files to others was "neither morally nor legally justifiable at present."

The United States, while ready to work for an amendment of the Bonn Agreements, is impatient. It argues that it never ceded ownership rights of the papers at Bad Arolsen, that all 11 governments have the right to inspect them and that no absolute legal impediment exists to the immediate copying and transfer of the files.

But the German government, having already paid out more than $80 billion in reparations, is concerned that questions of legal liability be thoroughly clarified before Bad Arolsen is opened up and its files made available elsewhere.

"We have to address the question of who will be allowed to do what with this data and who will be legally responsible if somebody abuses this," Mr. Ischinger said. "There are layers of legal difficulties."

The legal issues are indeed complex. But six decades after the war, it seems clear that opening up Bad Arolsen would play a critical role in filling in the details of the vile tapestry of Nazi crimes. "We need to connect all the dots," Ms. Bloomfield said.

Besides, the Tracing Service is swamped. Its budget, provided by Germany, has been cut as part of national austerity measures. Its staff has been reduced to about 360 from more than 400. Its backlog of unanswered tracing inquiries exceeds 400,000, partly because of a wave of questions on slave-labor compensation that had to be answered. People demanding to know what happened to their relatives sometimes go years without a response.

Its process of making digitized copies of papers has been painfully slow; only 55 percent of documents have been copied electronically. This copying, a necessary prelude to any transfer of information, will take two more years, Mr. Biedermann says. That appears to be more time than the United States is prepared to wait. Last June, at a meeting in Warsaw of the 20-country Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, a statement was issued calling for "immediate steps to be taken to open the archive" at Bad Arolsen "to scholars and other researchers." It said the 11-nation international commission should "address this matter on an urgent basis."

But no urgency has been apparent, despite the fact that all 11 countries in the commission overseeing Bad Arolsen are members of the 20-nation Task Force. A meeting of lawyers from the commission is scheduled for later this month in Luxembourg. It will be followed by a gathering in May of leading officials, including Mr. O'Donnell, who made clear he would like to see a resolution of the dispute then.

The BBC's Nick Bryant says the visit comes at a particularly delicate time.

Last week France recalled a decommissioned warship heading for a ship-breaking yard in India, following environmental concerns.

The French president has also become involved in a row over a hostile bid by Indian-born billionaire Lakshmi Mittal to take over Luxembourg-based steel-maker Arcelor.

Mr Chirac said on Monday that in principle France had absolutely "nothing against a non-European taking over a European company".

"The concerns that have been expressed are entirely legitimate. I do not understand what the fuss is about," he said.

The Indian prime minister raised the issue with Mr Chirac in their talks, he said.

Nuclear deal

India and France signed nine agreements, including ones on defence, trade and tourism.

The nuclear agreement means that France will support India's attempts to gain access to nuclear fuel and civilian technology to fuel its growing energy needs.

"India's access to civilian-nuclear technology... is indeed necessary in order to drive and fuel India's economic development," President Chirac said.

"We appreciate France's support for the ongoing effort to enable full civilian nuclear energy co-operation between India and the international community," Mr Singh said at a joint news conference with Mr Chirac.

Our correspondent says a firmer and more detailed nuclear energy agreement between the two countries will have to await the outcome of talks between India and the United States over a landmark deal to supply Delhi with much needed nuclear technology.

Talks with Washington have been deadlocked over a plan to separate India's civilian and military nuclear facilities - essential for the agreement to be sealed by the US Congress.

Both sides hope to sort out their differences before US President George W Bush visits India next month.

Cementing ties

France is also hoping to strike key defence deals with India which is in the market for 126 new warplanes, a purchase worth billions of dollars.

The French-made Mirage fighter-jet is hoping to win over its rivals from the US, Russia and Sweden.

A deal for the supply of 43 Airbus commercial aircraft to state-run Indian airlines was also signed during the visit in a deal estimated at $2.5bn.

Trade between the two countries is limited to $2.99bn according to the Confederation of Indian Industry and both sides are hoping to extend it further.

"Its action is aimed on the contrary at stopping foreign interference in the country and allowing the Lebanese to recover their full sovereignty and independence in line with UN resolution 1559," said the spokesman, Denis Simonneau.

The official from Lahoud's office has accused French President Jacques Chirac of personally supervising a group working with the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority to push the president out of office.

Lahoud has been under severe pressure ever since Lebanese security officials close to him were arrested over the murder of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and a UN probe accused his Syrian allies of involvement in the killing.

The anti-Syrian parliamentary majority late Thursday gave the president a month-long deadline to resign.

But Lahoud, effectively boycotted by France since his extension, has repeatedly vowed to serve out his full term.

France had already angered the president's supporters by co-sponsoring with the United States a series of Security Council resolutions critical of Syria and its Lebanese allies.

The agreement marks the first purchase of new planes by Indian for 15 years. The carrier, formerly known as Indian Airlines, flies mainly domestic routes.

From a former monopoly position, its domestic market share has slid to 33%.

'Great achievement'

Indian has fallen behind privately-run Jet Airways, which has 43% market share and regularly wins awards for good service and food.

The deal between Indian and Airbus will be formally signed by French President Jacques Chirac and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who were meeting in Delhi on Monday.

Indian will purchase Airbus A320 and A319 planes.

Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard described the agreement as "a great achievement" which had come to a "happy conclusion today".

A hold-up in talks last September was only cleared after Airbus lowered its price by around $75m, the Indian government said last September.

"Wikipedia isn't a Web site for spreading reactionary speech or a pure political commentary site," Shi, 33, wrote a few days later. Yes, it contained entries on sensitive subjects such as Taiwan and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but users made sure its articles were objective, he said, and blocking it would only make it harder for people in China to delete "harmful" content.

Shi was hopeful the government would agree. When the site was blocked in 2004, he had submitted a similar letter, and access had been quickly restored. Since then, the Chinese-language edition of Wikipedia had grown, broadening its appeal not only as a reference tool but also as a forum where people across China and the Chinese diaspora could gather, share knowledge and discuss even the most divisive subjects.

But today, four months after Shi submitted his letter, Wikipedia remains blocked.

The government has declined to explain its actions. But its on-again, off-again attempts to disrupt access to the site highlight the Communist Party's deep ambivalence toward the Internet: The party appears at once determined not to be left behind by the global information revolution and fearful of being swept away by it.

Officials tolerated Wikipedia at first, perhaps because it seemed to be exactly what the party had in mind when it began promoting Internet use 11 years ago -- an educational resource that could help China close its technological gap with the West, encourage innovation and boost economic growth.

But as the Chinese Wikipedia flourished, the authorities apparently came to see it as another threat to the party's control of information, and an example of an even more worrying development. The Internet has emerged as a venue for people with shared interests -- or grievances -- to meet, exchange ideas and plan activities without the party's knowledge or approval.

With 111 million people online and 20,000 more joining them every day, the landscape of Chinese cyberspace resembles a vast collection of new and overlapping communities. Although Chinese write less e-mail than Americans, they embrace the Internet's other communication tools -- bulletin boards and chat rooms, instant-messaging groups and blogs, photo-sharing and social networking sites. A popular feature of the Chinese search engine Baidu lets users chat with others who have entered the same keywords.

Studies suggest this digital interaction is changing the traditional structure of Chinese society, strengthening relations among friends, colleagues and others outside family networks. In a multinational survey, a much larger percentage of Internet users in China than anywhere else said online communication had increased their contact with people who shared their hobbies, professions and political views.

The Communist Party polices these emerging Internet communities with censors and undercover agents, and manages a Web site that it said received nearly a quarter-million anonymous tips about "harmful information" online last year. But the methods the party uses to control speech and behavior in the real world have proved less effective in cyberspace, where people get away with more, and where the government is often a step behind.

When authorities catch up, citizens often have already weakened the party's grip on public life and succeeded in expanding civil society. They have organized charity drives for rural schoolchildren and mobilized students for anti-Japanese protest marches. And they learned to work together to write an encyclopedia.

"Wikipedia is special because other places don't have this kind of discussion, at least not such an intellectual discussion. It's a place where people with different backgrounds interact," said Shi, a prolific contributor to the Chinese Wikipedia. "But that wasn't even our goal. Our goal was just to produce an encyclopedia."
Meeting of Minds

Created by volunteers who write and edit articles in a collaborative process, Wikipedia is the Web's largest reference site, and it boasts editions in more than 200 languages.

The Chinese one, launched in May 2001, was blank for more than a year before Michael Yuan, a graduate student in mathematics at Beijing University, stumbled across it in a Google search. Yuan said he was enchanted by the English edition, and saw it as "an interesting place to study, hold discussions and share the pleasure of learning and writing." When he noticed the Chinese site was empty, he set out to build it.

On Oct. 30, 2002, Yuan created the first entry, a one-sentence definition of "mathematics." He was soon joined by Sheng Jiong, a Shanghai native studying law in Singapore, who wrote on the "People's Republic of China."

In the beginning, the Chinese edition was heavy with science and technology. The Norwegian mathematician Kirsten Nygaard was added before Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China. But as months passed, people from around the world began to submit articles on a variety of subjects, including wine and cars, history and politics.

In July 2003, a prolific Hong Kong user known online as Lorenzarius sparked one of the site's first political debates with an essay urging people to avoid "China-centrism." He argued, for example, that the war that began when Japan invaded China in 1937 should be called the "Second Sino-Japanese War" instead of the "War of Resistance against Japan," as it is referred to by the party.

Most who responded posted objections, saying that almost all Chinese knew the war by its official name. But they also endorsed his larger point about trying to maintain a neutral point of view in Wikipedia's entries.

A few months later, another debate erupted over how contributors should resolve disputes on the site. Some advocated a system in which only the most active users could vote, but Sheng argued that all users should be treated equally. Lorenzarius concurred, and urged users to try to compromise and seek consensus before resorting to a vote.

To many educated in China, these governing principles of Wikipedia -- objectivity in content, equality among users, the importance of consensus -- were relatively new concepts. Yuan said he consulted the work of philosopher John Rawls and economist Friedrich Hayek to better understand how a free community could organize itself and "produce order from chaos."

"We had heard of these ideas, but they really didn't have much to do with our lives," said Yuan, now a computer programmer. "In school, we were taught an official point of view, not a neutral point of view. And we didn't learn much about how to cooperate with people who had different opinions."

In early 2004, state-run newspapers began writing positive articles about the Chinese Wikipedia, and the coverage fueled further growth. By February, more than 3,000 people had registered as users and there were more than 5,000 entries. By April, the site was getting nearly 100,000 page requests per day. By May, the number of definitions on the site had climbed past 10,000.

Then, on June 3, 2004, people in China who tried to visit Wikipedia saw an error page instead. The government had blocked the site on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Story of Tiananmen Square

The entry on the "June 4 Incident" in the Chinese Wikipedia runs nearly 20 pages, but when it first appeared in September 2003, it was just three sentences. Posted by an anonymous user, it said troops seized control of Tiananmen Square after it had become a "base camp for various hostile forces." It did not mention any deaths or student protesters' demands for democracy.

Two months later, people began to edit the article, inserting a phrase about the pro-democracy movement and mentioning that "many city residents" were killed. But the Wikipedia community seemed hesitant. A few people tried to break the silence, adding thousands of words all at once. But others deleted them immediately.

Then, four months before Wikipedia was blocked, Sheng posted a message saying he planned to overhaul the entry. Slowly, he began writing a more detailed and objective account, posting it piece by piece, starting with a chronology of the demonstrations and putting off the more sensitive subject of the massacre for later. Another user noted that foreign news media had reported that more than 1,000 people were killed.

The changes prompted debate even before Sheng finished the project. One user attacked the article as biased, arguing that foreigners had used the students at Tiananmen Square to subvert the Chinese government. Others urged caution because of the political sensitivity of the subject.

"Regarding the June 4 incident, I know very little," one person wrote. "At least for the present stability, I hope we don't make an issue of this."

Shi Zhao, the chemical engineer and frequent contributor, objected to using the famous photo showing a lone student stopping a column of tanks. "It seems the entire article has very little from China's point of view," he added. "It's basically all the Western point of view. Is this a neutral point of view?"

But after Wikipedia was blocked on the eve of the Tiananmen anniversary, Shi -- who describes himself as a supporter of the Communist Party -- was among the first to call his Internet service provider to complain. He also submitted an appeal.

Then without any explanation, the government restored access to the site.

The 19-day disruption caused Chinese Wikipedia use to drop and prompted hand-wringing in the community that built it. Some suggested that the site practice self-censorship to avoid being blocked again. But most opposed the idea on principle.

"It would have violated our policies, because Wikipedia is independent of any government," Shi said. "We aren't publishing political editorials, just providing information from a neutral point of view."

Instead of backing down, the site attracted more users, and the debates intensified as people tried to hammer out their differences on subjects such as the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, the one-child policy and even the Chinese Communist Party.

Because users hailed from Taiwan as well as the mainland, the most passionate fights were related to the status of the self-governing island. At one point, there was even talk about splitting the site in two, because residents of Taiwan and the mainland write Chinese with different sets of characters.

Technology bridged that divide. A student wrote a computer program to automatically convert text from one set to the other.

Slowly, a community was consolidating outside the party's purview, one that was learning to settle its own disputes, that crossed borders and tolerated those who contradicted the party's views, and that began organizing get-togethers in the real world as well as cyberspace.

It must have been disturbing to some in the party, which has long sought to dominate all organized social activity in China. In September 2004, the government blocked access to Wikipedia again.

Some blamed the decision on an influx of Internet users who were upset that the censors had shut down a popular university Web site. Others linked it to a message posted by a disgruntled Wikipedian on the losing side of an argument two days earlier.

"I have already called the police, and told them there is a lot of Taiwan independence, Falun Gong and other reactionary content here," the user wrote. "I even gave them many entries as examples. After a few days, they will come for an inspection. You'd better get ready. . . . Ha, ha."

'China's Voice to the World'

To the community's relief, the second block lasted only four days. Then, for more than a year, Wikipedia operated free of any government interference.

The encyclopedia flourished, passing the 40,000-entry mark in September, and the community thrived, growing more stable and mature. Users continued to discuss and write about sensitive subjects, branching into current events, but the rancor of the debates seemed to subside. When newcomers resorted to overheated language, veterans stepped in and cooled things down.

So the government's most recent decision to block Wikipedia was a deep disappointment. Shi Zhao submitted another appeal. Cui Wei, 25, a graduate student at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote one, too.

"By blocking Wikipedia, we lose a chance to present China's voice to the world, allowing evil cults, Taiwan independence forces and others . . . to present a distorted image of China," he said. "We lose a chance to share academic knowledge with the world, and as users, a channel to gain information. . . .

"Such an act is no different than cutting off our tongues and shutting our eyes and ears. It is closing and locking up the country in the age of the Internet."

As the weeks passed, many concluded Wikipedia had been blocked for good.

In December, a message appeared on a Wikipedia page alleging the site had been "conducting anti-China activities under the flag of being neutral" and accusing its senior users of being "running dogs for American imperialism." Some suspected the note was posted by a government agent.

The number of people using the Chinese Wikipedia site has dropped, but devoted users are finding ways to access it. The community now boasts 45,000 registered users, most from the mainland. Among the site's 56,000 entries is one that explains how to get around the government's firewall.

The proposal, by Premier Jean Charest, who called for "a new era for health care in Quebec," came in response to a Supreme Court decision last June that struck down a provincial law that banned private medical insurance and ordered the province to initiate a reform program within a year.

The Supreme Court decision ruled that long waits for various medical procedures in the province had violated patients' "life and personal security, inviolability and freedom," and that prohibition of private health insurance was unconstitutional when the public health system did not deliver "reasonable services."



The decision applied directly only to Quebec, but it has generated movement for private clinics and private insurance in several provinces where governments hope to forestall similar court decisions.

Coincidentally, last week Premier Gordon Campbell of British Columbia asked in his Throne speech, the equivalent of a state of the province address, "Does it really matter to patients where or how they obtain their surgical treatment if it is paid for with public funds?"

It was a question that was almost unthinkable for a major politician to ask before last year's Supreme Court decision. Public health care insurance, where citizens go to their doctor or to the hospital for basic services paid for by taxpayers, has long been considered politically sacrosanct in Canada, and even central to the national identity.

Mr. Campbell presented his vision for a new provincial health care system that would resemble those of most of Western Europe, where the government pays for essential treatment delivered in both public and private clinics and hospitals.

Alberta's premier, Ralph Klein, recently expressed a similar goal, and his government is promising legislation to permit doctors to work simultaneously in private and public institutions and allow the building of private hospitals.

Quebec, Canada's second most populous province, after Ontario, has not decided to go that far. Forced by the court to meet a one-year deadline for a plan to change the system, Mr. Charest proposed limited but important changes.

He proposed that private insurance cover knee and hip replacements and cataract surgery. Publicly run hospitals would be allowed to subcontract to private clinics for such procedures when the hospitals were unable to deliver the services within six months. The plan is to be introduced in the provincial Legislature for passage before the summer.

"We're putting the private sector to work for the public," Mr. Charest told reporters. "We're taking a measured step in this direction."



Mr. Charest and the province's health minister, Philippe Couillard, called for an open debate, and they did not rule out more privatization in the future. Quebec already has about 50 private health clinics, far more than any other province, but doctors would remain forbidden to serve in both the private and public systems under the Charest plan.

Antonia Maioni, a McGill University political scientist who specializes in health care, said Mr. Charest had to be careful about pushing too hard for privatization because he knew unions and other liberals would resist sweeping changes.

"They are trying to stay politically afloat," Ms. Maioni said, noting Mr. Charest's low standing in opinion polls only a year or two before the next provincial elections. "The winds of change are blowing, but they are not knocking everything over."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative elected last month, did not propose a sweeping overhaul of the system in the recent national campaign. But he did favor guaranteed waiting times for services. As a free-market Conservative, he is thought to favor the Supreme Court decision and will probably try to use it to encourage changes.

The departing Liberal government opposed fundamental changes. But the new health minister, Tony Clement, is a proponent of experimentation and innovations to reduce waiting, modernize equipment and increase the supply of doctors.

Chavez modified lyrics from a Venezuelan folk song, warning: "I sting those who rattle me, don't mess with me Condoleezza."

Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense in recent months, with U.S. officials voicing concerns over the health of Venezuela's democracy and left-leaning Chavez threatening to cut off oil exports to the United States.

Last week, Rice said told U.S. lawmakers that the Venezuelan government posed "one of the biggest problems" in the region and that its ties to Cuba were "particularly dangerous" to democracy in Latin America.

Chavez insists his government is democratic and accuses Washington of conspiring against him. He says the United States was behind a short-lived 2002 coup, an allegation that U.S. officials reject.

Fifteen other miners were rescued from the pit and eight of them were undergoing surgery to treat injuries, said a spokesman for public security in San Juan de Sabinas, a town in Coahuila state where the mine is located.

The early morning explosion triggered an avalanche of earth and rocks that blocked the mine's exits.

"The situation is critical," the spokesman said by telephone. Dozens of troops, police and medical workers were contributing to the rescue effort, he said.

The miners' relatives have rushed to the scene of the accident, the spokesman said.

"There's a lot of people, anxious women, crying and asking about their husbands and brothers," he said.

About 95 percent of Mexico's coal reserves are in Coahuila state.