Iran's President Hassan Rouhani addresses the audience during a meeting in Ankara June 10, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) - Iran stands ready to help Iraq's government in its fight against Sunni Muslim insurgents within the framework of international law, although Baghdad has so far not requested assistance, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday.

In a press conference broadcast live on state television, Rouhani also said Iran believed it was possible to conclude a comprehensive agreement ending its nuclear dispute with major powers by a July 20 deadline. Remaining differences could be settled through goodwill and flexibility, he said.

Shi'ite Muslim Iran, which has strong leverage in Shi'ite-majority Iraq, is so alarmed by the Sunni jihadist advance from Iraq's north that it may be ready to cooperate with longtime arch-enemy Washington in helping Baghdad fight back.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters earlier this week that the idea is being discussed within the Tehran leadership. For now, officials say, Iran will send its neighbour advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to boost Baghdad.

In the nuclear talks the main stumbling block has been the permissible scope of Iran's uranium enrichment. The lack of progress in bridging gaps has left the parties' deadline for a long-term settlement looking increasingly unrealistic and Iran has said a six-month extension may be necessary.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, writing by William Maclean, editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iran president: Iraq aid ready, nuke deal possible

Iran is prepared to assist Baghdad and move forward on a possible nuclear agreement, Hassan Rouhani says.
Alarming jihadist advances

Gary Jones, 37, Racine, holds aloft the rainbow striped gay and lesbian pride flag in front of the Racine County Courthouse on Friday, June 13, 2014, in Racine, Wis., during a rally in support of gay marriage after the county has still refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite a judge's ruling that the state ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. Racine County is one of a minority of counties in Wisconsin currently continuing to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (AP Photo by Scott Anderson, Journal Times)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday put same-sex marriages in Wisconsin on hold, a week after she struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional, a move that allowed more than 500 couples to wed over the last eight days.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb's ruling Friday means that gay marriages will end while the appeal from Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is pending. Couples who were in the middle of the five-day waiting period to get a license, which most counties waived, are caught in limbo.

Van Hollen requested Crabb put her ruling on hold, arguing that allowing the marriages while the underlying case was pending created confusion about the legality of those marriages.

In her order, Crabb expressed mixed feelings.

"After seeing the expressions of joy on the faces of so many newly wedded couples featured in media reports, I find it difficult to impose a stay on the event that is responsible for eliciting that emotion, even if the stay is only temporary," Crabb said in her order. "Same-sex couples have waited many years to receive equal treatment under the law, so it is understandable that they do not want to wait any longer. However, a federal district court is required to follow the guidance provided by the Supreme Court."

The ruling came exactly one week after Crabb declared the state's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. But Crabb didn't issue any orders on how state officials were to implement her decision, and amid the uncertainty, nearly every Wisconsin county — 60 of 72 — issued licenses.

Crabb issued an order preventing clerks from denying same-sex couples marriage licenses, but then put that on hold as well as her earlier ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional.

John Knight, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law, called Crabb's decision to put her order on hold disappointing.

"But we will fight for a quick resolution on appeal and are confident that marriage will be a reality in Wisconsin very soon for lesbian and gay couples who have waited much too long already," he said in an email.

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Rev. Tony Larsen and his partner Craig Matheus are refused a marriage license by Racine County Clerk …

Van Hollen said he was "very pleased" with the ruling.

"County clerks do not have authority under Wisconsin law to issue same-sex marriage licenses," he said in a statement. "Judge Crabb's stay makes this abundantly clear."

Van Hollen said he will appeal her ruling striking down the law to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court.

Allen Rasmussen, 46, and Keith Kitsembel, 49, who have been together for 14 years, asked the Portage County clerk nine times since Monday to get a marriage license.

"I think it's ridiculous," Kitsembel said after the ruling Friday. "I furthermore am very, very, very disappointed in our county clerk in Portage County. We had a small window of opportunity to get married, and she refused to grant us a license nine times in five days."

They were part of a silent protest Friday outside the Portage County courthouse.

As of midday Thursday, 555 same-sex couples had gotten married in the state, based on an Associated Press survey of all 72 counties.

Van Hollen said Thursday that same-sex couples with marriage licenses aren't legally married because Crabb hasn't issued an order telling county clerks how to interpret her ruling striking down the law. Van Hollen also said district attorneys could charge clerks who issued licenses with a crime.

Crabb reiterated in Friday's 30-minute hearing that clerks were issuing licenses to same-sex couples on their own.

"I never told them not to and I never told them to do it," Crabb said.

The ACLU and others say because Crabb found the law unconstitutional, and didn't order clerks not to issue licenses, they could legally give them to couples seeking to get married.

Crabb's order did not address whether same-sex marriages completed over the past week are valid.

Wisconsin's constitutional amendment, approved by 59 percent of voters in 2006, outlawed gay marriage or anything substantially similar. The ACLU said the ban violated the constitutional rights of eight gay couples to equal protection and due process and Crabb agreed.

Gay rights activists have won 15 consecutive lower court cases since a landmark Supreme Court ruling last summer, with Wisconsin being the latest.

Wisconsin is among 13 states with gay marriage cases pending before appeals courts.

_____

Associated Press writer Carrie Antlfinger contributed to this report from Milwaukee.

Three teenagers, including a U.S. citizen, are feared to have been abducted by Palestinian militants in the West Bank.
Burned car found

Kiev (AFP) - The United States accused Russia of sending tanks and rocket launchers to pro-Moscow rebels in Ukraine as Kiev's resurgent forces hoisted the national flag over a strategic rebel-held port amid fears of possible Russian gas cuts.

Moscow said Ukrainian tanks had crossed the border into its territory before being intercepted, a day after Ukraine alleged that three tanks had crossed from Russia into its territory, underscoring the growing tensions between Kiev and Moscow.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that the tanks' crossing into the former Soviet republic's separatist east was "unacceptable".

Washington backed Kiev's claims, saying separatists in eastern Ukraine had also obtained multiple rocket launchers from Russia among other heavy weapons and military equipment.

The United States has "information that Russia has accumulated tanks of a type no longer used by Russian forces at a deployment site in southwest Russia, and some of these tanks recently departed," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Friday.

"We are confident that these tanks came from Russia," she added, noting that no Ukrainian tank units have been operating in the area.

Earlier, she told reporters that a convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 or Grad multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles had "crossed from Russia into Ukraine".

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Ukrainian police inspect a destroyed car following a powerful explosion outside the regional state b …

Internet videos had shown the same types of tanks moving through multiple cities in eastern Ukraine, including Snizhne, Torez and Makiyivka, Harf said.

The same types of rocket launcher was seen travelling through Lugansk.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that reports of pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine acquiring heavy weapons from Russia, including tanks, would mark a "serious escalation" of the crisis if confirmed.

Poroshenko celebrated the "heroism" of soldiers hoisting the national flag over the strategic rebel-held port of Mariupol.

He proclaimed the industrial Sea of Azov city the new temporary capital of Donetsk -- an eastern rustbelt region overrun by pro-Russian gunmen for the past two months.

Mariupol has wavered between rebel and Kiev control for weeks and was also the scene of pitched battles on May 9 that killed more than a dozen people.

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A pro-Russian militant guards a street where a powerful explosion took place outside the regional st …

- Heavy rebel losses -

The bustling port of half a million people provides access to the main highway linking other regions with Russia and is the main export channel for coal and industrial products fundamental to Ukraine's economic growth.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that federal forces led by the part-volunteer National Guard had inflicted "heavy losses" on the rebels while seeing only four soldiers suffer light wounds.

But the prosecutor's office also confirmed that three soldiers died late Thursday when they were ambushed by the militia in the Donetsk region town of Stepanivka.

His deputy told reporters that 30 pro-Russian gunmen had been captured in a coordinated push involving special forces that saw rebels driven from the city's seat of power they had reoccupied about a month ago.

The region's main administration building in Donetsk remains under rebel control.

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A pro-Russian militant guards a checkpoint on the road between Donetsk and Mariupol, near the easter …

Poroshenko rose to power in a snap May 25 ballot called after the February ouster of a Russian-backed leader by vowing to move Ukraine closer to the West and end fighting that has claimed 270 lives.

But the battles have since only intensified and his calls for dialogue with more moderate separatist leaders have been mostly ignored.

- Monday morning gas cut -

Poroshenko's troubles have been compounded by the threat of Ukraine being cut off from economically-vital Russian gas shipments as early as Monday morning because of a bitter price dispute.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told regional administrations and the heads of the state energy company to prepare for the consequences of a possible gas cut by implementing a plan for reduced energy use.

Moscow said Friday Ukrainian tanks had crossed the border into its territory before being intercepted by the border patrol.

The allegation came a day after Ukraine alleged tanks had crossed from Russia into its territory, and underscored the growing tension between Kiev and Moscow, fuelled in part by the lack of any progress in the high-stakes "gas war".

Ukraine receives half its gas supplies from Russia and transports 15 percent of the fuel consumed in Europe.

The head of Ukraine's state energy firm said Kiev was ready to make a $1.95-billion (1.45-billion-euro) payment demanded by Moscow by Monday if Russia settled on a price of $326 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas.

A spokeswoman for Russia's energy minister also refused to confirm EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger's earlier suggestion that new negotiations might be held on Saturday.

Analysts said the talks' slow progress reflected the complete loss of trust between the neighbours and the high stakes involved in the broader East-West battle for the future of the ex-Soviet state.

"We see gas talks as the derivative of the wider dispute between Russia and Ukraine," New York's Morgan Stanley investment bank said in a research note.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso meanwhile told the Russian leader he was willing to include Moscow in discussions with Kiev weeks before the EU is due to sign an association accord and free trade pact with the former Soviet state.

Sci-fi authors and gamers have long imagined this day, and now it has come: The U.S. military is developing a laser weapon to shoot enemy drones out of the sky.

The Navy has already developed such a weapon that it plans to deploy on a ship later this summer. The Office of Naval Research (ONR), based in Arlington, Virginia, announced this week that they are now interested in developing a similarlaser weapon for ground vehicles.

The somewhat ominously named GBAD program (short for Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move) aims to provide "an affordable alternative to traditional firepower" to guard against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could track or target U.S. Marines on the ground, ONR officials said. [How Do Laser Weapons Work? (Infographic)]

"We can expect that our adversaries will increasingly use UAVs and our expeditionary forces must deal with that rising threat," Col. William Zamagni, acting head of ONR's expeditionary maneuver warfare and combating terrorism department, said in a statement.

The ONR is working with Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division and industry partners to develop the laser system, which includes a beam director, batteries, radar, cooling system, communications and control.

Researchers are designing the futuristic weapon to be used on lightweight military vehicles, such as the Humvee and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

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The military's laser weapon would shoot down unmanned aerial vehicles that tried to target U.S. …

The laser system was developed in response to the Marine Corps Science and Technology Strategic Plan, which called for a mobile directed-energy weapon that could target and destroy enemy drones.

"Everything about this program is geared toward realizing a viable directed-energy capability in support of that objective to allow our Marines to be fast and lethal," Lee Mastroianni, program manager for force protection in ONR’s expeditionary maneuver warfare and combating terrorism department, said in a statement.

Several components of the laser have already been tested in detecting and tracking drones of all sizes, according to the ONR. Later this year, researchers will test the complete system using a 10 kilowatt laser, with plans to eventually move to a more powerful 30 kW laser, which is expected to be ready for field testing in 2016. At that time, the program will conduct more complex assessments of the laser on tactical vehicles, evaluating how well it detects, tracks and fires on its targets.

The Navy has already developed a ship-based laser weapon. An updated prototype will be installed on USS Ponce for at-sea testing in the Persian Gulf, Navy officials said recently. The Navy's weapon will target unmanned and light aircraft, as well as small attack boats that could deny access to U.S. forces, officials said. The laser was used in demonstrations aboard a warship in 2011 to destroy multiple small boats, and in 2012, the weapon successfully downed several unmanned aircraft in tests.

The Department of Defense High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office, MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, the Penn State Electro-Optics Center and the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command have invested money and research into developing the technologies used in the new laser system.

The weapon is being developed as part of the ONR's Future Naval Capabilities program, which aims to rapidly translate proven technology into something the military can use.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook &Google+. Original article on Live Science.