Kerry says climate talks make progress, despite delay

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said talks on a global deal to slow climate change "made a lot of progress" overnight but that there were a couple of "very difficult" issues to resolve after France extended the conference by a day into Saturday. Kerry also said, after meeting host French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, that he was "hopeful" that a consensus could be reached among 195 nations and that over the course of Friday contentious issues will "melt away". "There is a lot of progress made last night, a long night, but there are still a couple of very difficult issues that we're working on," he told reporters. (Reporting By Lesley Wroughton, writing by Alister Doyle)