Briefs

Mexico security official:

Intelligence agency's hurting

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's top security official said yesterday that the country's intelligence agency has been hurt by budget cuts in recent years, weakening the government's ability to prevent attacks such as two recent pipeline bombings.

Answering angry questions by lawmakers in Congress, Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez said the government has formed a special anti-subversion task force in response to the Sept. 10 and July 11 attacks claimed by leftist rebels, which affected gas and oil deliveries and cost businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ramirez said President Felipe Calderon inherited a weakened Center for National Security and Investigation, or Cisen, when he took office Dec. 1.

State Department denies

slowing Blackwater probe

WASHINGTON - Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., charged yesterday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her aides are trying to impede congressional probes into corruption in Iraq and the activities of Blackwater USA, the contractor that provides security for State Department personnel in Iraq.

Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, complained in a letter to Rice that the State Department this week barred its officials from talking to Congress about corruption in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government unless those discussions are kept secret.

"Your position seems to be that positive information about the al-Maliki government may be disseminated publicly, but any criticism of the government must be treated as a national security secret," Waxman told Rice.

Said State Department spokesman Tom Casey: "There seems to be misunderstanding as to the facts in this matter. The information requested by the committee has been or is in the process of being provided."

Lebanese lawmakers delay

electing a new president

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The Lebanese Parliament, which was slated to elect a president yesterday, postponed the vote until Oct. 23 after it failed to muster a quorum because of the deadlock among the country's political factions.

The session was boycotted by most lawmakers from Hezbollah, the Shiite party, and its allies, who want the governing majority to put forth a compromise candidate with wider support.

Government officials toned down their language on yesterday after a week of issuing dire warnings and predictions, including a claim by one official that pro-Syrian forces were trying to kill enough lawmakers to tilt the balance in the presidential contest. The pro-Western governing coalition has a small majority in Parliament.

"Despite everything, we continue to seek constructive dialogue to salvage the presidential election and save Lebanon from the danger of falling into a vacuum," the deputy speaker of Parliament, Farid Makari, told reporters.

1297 copy of the Magna Carta

expected to fetch $20 million

LONDON - A 13th-century copy of the Magna Carta, a milestone of English freedom, will be offered for sale in New York in December, Sotheby's auction house said yesterday.

The manuscript, owned by the Perot Foundation, is estimated to sell for $20 million to $30 million.

The document was displayed at the National Archives in Washington for more than 20 years.

King John was forced by barons to agree to the charter in 1215. It guaranteed that freemen would not be imprisoned or deprived of property without due process, including a right to a speedy trial before a jury.

Versions of the Magna Carta were issued in 1216, 1217, 1225 and 1264 by John's son, King Henry III.

The copy offered by Sotheby's for sale on Dec. 10 is dated 1297, the year it was incorporated into the statute rolls of King Edward I.

H. Ross Perot bought the copy in 1984 and loaned it to the National Archives. It was first exhibited in 1985.

Colombia captives' kin

seek help from Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela - Relatives of three Americans held hostage by rebels in Colombia met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez yesterday, expressing support for his effort to mediate a swap of hostages for guerrilla prisoners.

The three U.S. defense contractors - Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Tom Howes - have been held by Colombia's largest rebel group since their small plane crashed in the country's southern jungles during a surveillance mission in February 2003.

"I guarantee that we will never stop fighting for this, and I am committed to this," said Chavez, who welcomed the relatives at the presidential palace.

The family members included Stansell's parents, Gene and Lynne Stansell, and 15-year-old son Kyle, Howes' wife Mariana Howes and 10-year-old son Tommy, and Gonsalves' father, George Gonsalves.

- Daily News wire services