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LONDON — Tony Blair defied intensifying pressure from within his governing Labour Party to outline his plans for leaving office, saying in an interview published Friday that critics should stop obsessing about how long he’ll hold on to power.

Speculation about when Blair will step down has dominated the British political scene for months and is growing as the party’s annual conference approaches.

Many within the party worry the uncertainty is damaging Labour’s electoral hopes. And, they fear Blair’s waning popularity is giving the resurgent Conservative Party a dangerous opening.

The prime minister gave no ground in an interview with The Times newspaper, urging his critics to turn down the volume and let him get on with his job.

"I’m not the one who keeps raising this issue,” he said. "I think if it is speculation that people are worried about, there is a simple answer — stop speculating.”

The Times said it asked Blair repeatedly whether the annual conference opening Sept. 24 would be his last as leader and got no answer.

He wouldn’t comment on when he might leave office, only repeating earlier assertions that he does not intend to seek a fourth term and will give his successor — widely expected to be Treasury chief Gordon Brown — ample time to settle into office before leading Labour into elections, expected by 2009.

"I think I have said enough for anyone reasonable to know I will do my best for the country and the party to make sure that when I do depart it is done in a stable and sensible and orderly way, but in the meantime, to get on with the job of prime minister,” Blair said.

That wasn’t enough to satisfy his critics.

"It’s very selfish that he won’t tell the party when he’s going to stand down,” said Labour lawmaker Geraldine Smith. "He owes it to the party to be open and honest and declare what his intentions are. We can’t go on like this. ... We need some clarity and we need to look to the future and we need to know who’s going to lead us into the next general election.”

Political prognosticating is so intense that even the message on Blair’s tea mug drew attention. A close-up front-page photo in the Times showed Blair’s cup, which had the name "Anthony” written on it, followed by the words: "You’re a man who’s in charge, others follow your lead.”

The calls for Blair to let go of power after nine years in office are now coming from a broader segment of the Labour Party than just the disgruntled left, which has long sought his ouster.

Even many one-time loyalists now say it’s time for their most successful leader in a generation to say goodbye.

"The mood has changed dramatically,” Smith said.

Two crucial factors are driving the sudden upsurge in anti-Blair sentiment, which has been simmering since the prime minister decided in 2003 to back the U.S.-led Iraq war.

Many Labour stalwarts were outraged by his refusal to urge a quick end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and saw it as a parroting of President Bush’s stance, a friendship many in the party detest.

And a recent Guardian/ICM poll of 1007 respondents showed Labour drawing its lowest level of support in 19 years, nine points behind the opposition Conservatives. That poor showing hit Blair’s strongest claim for continued leadership — his electoral prowess. The poll had a margin of error of three percentage points.

"They’ll forgive quite a lot if you’re still ahead,” said Patrick Dunleavy, a political scientist at the London School of Economics. When any organization, from a business to a political party, runs into trouble, "a change of leadership and a new start is (seen as) a good thing. I think that’s becoming unstoppable,” he said.

Charles Clarke, a senior party figure Blair fired from his Cabinet post in May, warned this week in the New Statesman magazine that Labour has alienated many voters who helped it win and hold office — harsh words from a man who was until recently a key supporter of the prime minister.

There’s little the prime minister’s opponents can do for now to force his hand.

But the question of how much longer he’ll hang on is sure to dominate the conference and distract attention from the message Blair would like to send, that he is moving forward with reforms on schools and health care and making progress in Iraq and against terrorism.

He is unlikely to specify a departure date in advance because doing so would immediately make him a powerless lame duck, said Wyn Grant, a politics professor at Warwick University.

Grant said Blair is likely to leave office some time next year and will probably not be able to hold on until 2008, as he is thought to have originally hoped.

"He is quite determined to carry on with his agenda,” Grant said. "The power and the prestige (are) quite hard to give up.”

Castro looks notably improved during televised visit from Venezuelan president

HAVANA — Cuban leader Fidel Castro, looking notably better than he did when last seen almost three weeks ago, happily greeted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a brief visit aired on state television Friday.

"Brother!” the 80-year-old Castro said from his sickbed, his face lighting up as Chavez entered the room Friday where he was recuperating and gave him a warm embrace.

"Gentleman of the heroic resistance!” the Venezuelan president responded with a smile to his good friend and ally.

Donors pledge

$500 million in aid

for Palestinians

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — World donors pledged $500 million in aid for Palestinians on Friday, including $55 million for a U.N. emergency appeal for humanitarian help, organizers said.

A total of $114 million of the money pledged will go toward humanitarian aid, with the rest going to rebuilding infrastructure and other projects, said Carin Jamtin, Sweden’s aid minister and host of the donors’ conference held in the Swedish capital.

"I would say this is a fantastic result,” she said.

The European Union pledged $64 million, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said.

Earlier, a top adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged world donors to help ease a "never-ending” humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and called on Israel to allow easier access for aid shipments to reach the West Bank.

"Given the constraints imposed on us, the situation continues to deteriorate,” Mohammad Mustafa said.

A United Nations flash appeal went out earlier this year for humanitarian aid, but donations had come up $200 million short before the conference, Egeland said.

"The needs have never been greater in the Palestinian territories than today,” he said at a news conference. "The Palestinians do not want to live on charity; (they) want to have an economy.”

Jamtin said donations not given to the emergency appeal would go to the Red Cross and other aid organizations.

Sweden’s foreign minister, Jan Eliasson, opened the conference with a Swedish pledge of $5 million for humanitarian aid, along with $3 million to rebuild a power plant destroyed earlier this year in an Israeli attack. Sweden said it also will give $6 million to a World Bank fund for Gaza, Eliasson said.

"We have to break the vicious circle of violence,” he said. "The feeling of despair must be replaced by hope.”

The conference came a day after a similar donors’ meeting in Stockholm raised $940 million in early reconstruction aid for Lebanon as it rebuilds from the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.

Iran defies U.N. Security

Council deadline on enrichment

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran underlined its disregard Friday for the now-expired U.N. deadline to halt uranium enrichment when its president vowed never to give up its nuclear program and accused the West of misrepresenting Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Iran had until midnight Thursday to halt its enrichment activities or face the possibility of economic sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution passed July 31.

Although the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported Thursday that Iran has not halted enrichment, thereby opening the way for punitive measures, U.S. and other officials said no action would be sought before a key European diplomat meets with Tehran’s atomic chief next week to seek a compromise.

On Friday, in the first comments by an Iranian official since the deadline passed, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a rally, "Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious right. We will never give up our legal right.”

Plane catches fire on landing in Iran

TEHRAN, Iran — A landing Iranian passenger plane skidded off the runway and raked its wing along the ground, sparking a fire that killed 29 of the 148 people on board Friday in the latest deadly crash of a Russian-made aircraft.

Rescue workers in the northeastern city of Mashhad carried survivors on stretchers out of the gutted craft, which lay in a pool of water near the runway with its middle charred and its roof collapsed. Iranian television footage showed firefighters spraying the engines with water.

"The plane was shaking badly during the landing, then it suddenly lurched to the left,” one survivor, Sahar Karimi, said. "Then it caught fire, and all the passengers rushed to the emergency exit,” she said.

U.S. lawmaker urges Romania to

send peacekeepers to Lebanon

BUCHAREST, Romania — A U.S. lawmaker urged Romania and other European nations Friday to contribute troops to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, despite Romania’s top defense body saying the country’s military was already stretched.

Romania, a key ally to the U.S. in its war on terror, has 700 troops in Iraq, about 680 in Afghanistan and 230 in the Balkans.

U.S. Representative Tom Lantos of California said, however, that he expected Romania and other European countries to do what they could to prevent Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants from rearming themselves in the Middle East.

"I expect that the other European countries will also accept this responsibility,” Lantos, D-San Mateo, was quoted as saying by state news agency Rompres during a visit Friday to Bucharest.

"I expect that our friends from all over Europe ... take part in the fight against this enemy which wants to destroy Western civilization,” the California Democrat said, noting that the U.S. had helped protect Europe from Soviet invasions for decades. Romania’s top defense body decided last week it would not send troops to Lebanon, saying the military was already spread thin.

President Traian Basescu has said, however, that Romania could reconsider if it received a "specific request” to help in Lebanon, apparently referring to a request by the European Union or the United States.

The U.N. has asked for assistance in boosting its force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, to up to 15,000 troops, which will help the Lebanese army exert control along the Lebanese-Israeli border. The U.N. mission expansion was part of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire resolution that ended the Israel-Hezbollah fighting on Aug. 14.

The EU has pledged to send 6,900 troops to Lebanon, with several European countries, led by France, Italy and Spain to provide the bulk of the European forces.

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