Negotiators from Iran and six world powers are meeting in Geneva Thursday in their latest bid to resolve a decade-long standoff over the Iranian nuclear program.

The two-day talks follow a meeting last month that both sides described as positive.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who leads Iran's delegation, said Thursday he expected "serious" negotiations, and that a deal could be reach this week if both sides try their best.

He spoke after a breakfast meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who serves at the chief negotiator for the group that includes the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany.

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's bid to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks moves to Jordan on Thursday.

Kerry is meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman for their second discussion in as many days. The senior U.S. diplomat also met twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and will hold talks with him a third time Friday, in Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials have complained about Israel's continued settlement construction in areas the Palestinians claim as part of a future state. Mr Netanyahu expressed concern about the state of the talks on Wednesday and accused the Palestinians of creating "artificial crises."

Swiss forensic scientists say samples taken from the exhumed corpse of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat show unexpectedly high levels of the lethal radioactive isotope polonium-210.

The findings from specialists at the University of Lausanne were released Wednesday in a 108-page report commission in part by Arafat's widow.

Forensic experts from France and Russia also took samples from Arafat's corpse in 2012. Russian officials say their examination has found no traces of polonium, while results from the French analysis have not yet been released.

The group overseeing the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons program says it has now been able to verify one of the two remaining sites where earlier safety and security concerns had prevented inspectors from visiting.

The Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the inspection of the site in Aleppo confirmed Syria's declaration that it was dismantled and "long abandoned."

Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has been freed from house arrest, after a court granted him bail in a case involving the killing of a Muslim cleric in 2007.

It is one of several cases against the former military leader, including a case linked to the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

A rocket carrying an unlit Olympic torch has arrived at the International Space Station, where the torch will be taken on an unprecedented spacewalk in the run-up to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi early next year.

The Russian Soyuz-FG rocket blasted off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Thursday.

The Philippines is bracing for huge storm that is expected to make landfall on Friday.

Simone Orendain reports.

On state television, forecasters warned that Typhoon Haiyan, which is locally called Yolanda, would pack winds topping 240 kilometers per hour. And this would make it the most powerful storm this rainy season.

Forecasters expect Haiyan to make landfall Friday morning in the eastern-most island province Samar. They say Metropolitan Manila to the northwest will also be under a major storm warning as the typhoon makes its way toward the western part of the country.

Simone Orendain,MANILA.

Asia-Pacific stock markets closed lower today.

I'm David Deforest.VOA News.More news on the internet at www.geilien.cn.