Iran says to enter Geneva talks with good intentions

TEHRAN - Iran is entering talks with six world powers this week with good intentions, the Islamic Republic's chief nuclear negotiator said Wednesday as he left Tehran for the one-day meeting in Geneva.

Saeed Jalili, echoing comments by other Iranian officials in the run-up to Thursday's discussions -- the first since U.S. president Barack Obama took office, described the meeting as an "opportunity and a test" for the world powers.

"We are entering the talks with a good will," he said at Tehran's international Imam Khomeini airport. Jalili is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

The United States and its Western allies have made clear they will focus on Iran's disputed nuclear program, which they suspect is aimed at making bombs, at the Oct 1. talks.

Iran, which says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity, has offered wide-ranging talks on security and other issues, but ruled out any discussions about its nuclear rights.

The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany will also take part in the Geneva meeting. Link...

Analysis: Voters left none the wiser as Brown concentrates on winning over his party

By Benedict Brogan

His speech had to persuade a demoralised party to stick with him until polling day by giving them something to fight for. This he did, and the betting must now be that he will be allowed to lead his party into the election.

But by producing a speech for a party audience, he offered nothing to explain to the voters out there why they should stick with him next time. Policy proposals intended to grab the attention of Middle England appeared to be falling apart within hours of his announcing them. And he left a troubling silence about the two crises facing the country: Afghanistan and the public finances.

Usually, a leader’s speech is aimed over the heads of delegates and at the nation listening beyond. Mr Brown’s was a strictly internal affair, intended to galvanise the Labour activists in the hall and elsewhere, on whom he will rely to knock on doors in the general election campaign that is all but under way.

Peter Mandelson had advised the Prime Minister to say less about what he has done and to concentrate on what he is going to do. Mr Brown obliged, but not straight away. He began with a breathless recital of Labour achievements that provoked one of the few electric moments of the hour, before going a lengthy detour through talk of banks, new economic models, and repeated references to change without any evidence of what that was.

He then produced what amounted to an early draft of Labour’s election manifesto, with a list of policies ranging from a pledge for ever higher cash for schools to care homes for teenage mothers.

For the constitutional anoraks in the party, he offered a referendum on changing the voting system. Together, it was enough to give delegates something to talk about on the doorstep.

They will not lose sleep over Tory costings showing how much more these schemes will pile on to the taxpayers’ back, but they may find voters unamused to find, for example, that the system of child care vouchers used by the many is being scrapped to pay for free child care for two-year-olds from the poorest families: how does that help the squeezed middle?

Mr Brown’s advisers believe that the populist measures on yobs and elderly care, the hard language on wayward MPs and greedy bankers, and the repeated questions about what a Tory Britain would mean for those who have come to depend on Labour’s profligate largesse, will give voters a reason to stick with Mr Brown on polling day.

But there was no telling phrase that will echo through the months of campaign, no attempt to explain his failings. Instead he had to rely – again – on his wife Sarah to provide the introduction, the love, and the ‘my hero’ headline. Like so much about Mr Brown’s premiership, there was little behind the bombast.

But with threats of a coup still present, he needed to give his party a clear reason to swing behind him and let him lead Labour to the polls. This was a speech for Labour, designed to revive morale that, just days ago, Alistair Darling said was on its knees.

Activists who were in despair now have something to fight for, even if they must know it will be in vain. It was a necessary and effective piece of political business, when it should have been so much more. Link...

Typhoon Ketsana blasts Cambodia

Many of the deaths in Vietnam came in the Central Highlands The powerful typhoon that has hit the Philippines and Vietnam with deadly force is now battering Cambodia. At least nine people have died in Kampong Thom province in central Cambodia. When Typhoon Ketsana hit Vietnam, more than 30 people were killed and almost 200,000 people fled their homes; severe flooding remains in central provinces. In the Philippines, where the typhoon hit over the weekend, at least 246 people are known to have died. Relief officials in the Philippines, struggling to feed and shelter hundreds of thousands of displaced people, admit they have been overwhelmed by the disaster. They warn that new storms are heading towards the country. Cambodia caught In Vietnam, Ketsana hit with torrential rains and winds of more than 150km/h before it headed inland towards northern Cambodia and southern Laos. Typhoons usually weaken on reaching land, but Ketsana is still dangerous, officials said. "At least nine people were crushed last night when their house fell down," said Chea Cheat, chief of the Red Cross office in Kampong Thom province, about 130 km (80 miles) north of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. He added that at least 78 houses in his province were destroyed and that heavy rain and rising floods were continuing. International organisations and government officials in Cambodia said they were distributing tents and food to affected people while assessing damage across at least five of the country's provinces. Vietnam floods The BBC's Guy De Launey in Phnom Penh said that Ketsana had been devastating when it headed toward the city of Danang, on central Vietnam's coast. The airport and schools were closed. Railways and roads linking north and south Vietnam were cut off. Danang airport has since reopened. The biggest floods in decades now threaten Vietnam's central provinces, correspondents said, with thousands of homes inundated with water. Vietnamese state media reported that at least 33 people had died from floods and landslides in seven coastal and central highland provinces, and river waters in Quang Nam provinces could reach a level last seen in 1964. Around 170,000 people were evacuated before the typhoon made landfall. Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said late on Tuesday that he hoped power supplies would be restored quickly, particularly to Quang Ngai province where Vietnam's first oil refinery, Dung Quat, was due to reopen after an outage shut the plant's test runs last month. Link...