Outside the palace, several thousand royal fans had gathered in the sunshine waving Swedish flags and hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple, who will tie the knot in front of some 470 guests.

"We hope she will be very happy in the future, the princess Madeleine," said Julia Huelsman, who had traveled from Munich, Germany for the occasion.

Madeleine, 30, is the youngest of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia's three children and fourth in line to the throne. The 38-year-old O'Neill works as a partner and head of research at Noster Capital, a hedge fund with offices in London and New York.

The couple met through mutual friends in New York, where they both live, and were first spotted together having lunch at the Central Park Boathouse in January, 2011. They announced their engagement in October, 2012.

Guests at the wedding include the U.K.'s Earl and Countess of Wessex, Prince Edward and Sophie; Princess Takamado of Japan and princes and princesses from Norway, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg and Monaco.

O'Neill has also invited many of his super-rich friends, such as Opel heir Georg von Opel, Cadbury chocolate heir Joel Cadbury, Colombian billionaire Alejandro Santo Domingo and Aidan and Fizzy Barclay. Other well-known invitees are Duran Duran band member John Taylor, the CEO of fashion retailer H&M, Karl-Johan Persson and golfer Jesper Parnevik.

Roxette singer Marie Fredriksson and Broadway's "Phantom of the Opera" star Peter Joback will sing during the ceremony, which is also set to feature Swedish folk songs and hymns in both Swedish and English.

The marriage is the last in a series of glamorous royal weddings that has mesmerized Europe in the past years. In June 2010, Madeleine's older sister Crown Princess Victoria wed her personal trainer Daniel Wesling in a grand ceremony in Stockholm and the year after Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton tied the knot in extravagant fashion in front of an estimated 2 billion television viewers. Also in 2011, Prince Albert II of Monaco wed Charlene Lynette Wittstock and in 2012 Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg united with Belgian Countess Stephanie de Lannoy.

The Swedish royal family has only ceremonial duties, such as attending award ceremonies, promoting Swedish businesses abroad and supporting charities. As the head of state, the king also receives foreign dignitaries on formal visits to Sweden.

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AP Television Producer Yesica Fisch contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three members of the U.S. Naval Academy football team are being investigated for the alleged sexual assault of a female student, the Pentagon said on Friday, the latest in a string of scandals that have thrown a spotlight on sex crimes in the military.

The alleged incident took place in April 2012, when the student attended a party at the off-campus "football house" in Annapolis, Maryland and became intoxicated, her attorney, Susan Burke, said in a statement.

"She woke up at the football house the next morning with little recall of what had occurred. She learned from friends and social media that three football players were claiming to have had sexual intercourse with her while she was incapacitated," Burke said, without identifying her client by name.

No charges have yet be brought against the accused men, sources familiar with the matter said.

The disclosure of the alleged incident comes just a week after President Barack Obama, in a speech at the same academy on May 24, urged graduates to stamp out sexual assault from their ranks. Obama said sexual assault was a crime that threatened to erode trust and discipline within the military.

The Naval Academy, which is located in Annapolis, declined to offer any details, beyond saying that the academy leadership was monitoring progress of the investigation and would "evaluate the appropriate options for adjudication."

"It is completely inappropriate to make any other public comment on this investigation or any ongoing investigation as we risk compromising the military justice process," said Commander John Schofield, a spokesman for the academy.

The Pentagon said only that the accused aggressors belonged to the football team and that the victim was a female student.

"There is absolutely no place for this in the United States military," said Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, commenting broadly on the issue of sexual assault.

"OSTRACIZED, RETALIATED AGAINST"

Burke said that one of the football players pressured the woman not to cooperate with an initial investigation into the case. She initially followed that advice, but was still "ostracized and retaliated against by the football players and the Naval Academy community." She was also disciplined for drinking, Burke said in a statement.

In early 2013, the female student decided to seek legal help and the Navy re-opened the investigation, Burke said.

"Over time, the midshipman began to recover from the trauma, and became angered at the lack of justice and retaliation in her case," she said.

Reuters was unable to identify the men accused in the case or find their attorneys. Students at the Naval Academy are known as "midshipmen."

The case is the latest in a series of sex-related scandals in the U.S. military that have come to light in recent weeks, including cases in which military advocates for victims of sexual assault were themselves accused of sex crimes.

A study released in May by the Defense Department estimated that reports of unwanted sexual contact in the military, from groping to rape, rose 37 percent in 2012, to about 26,000 cases from 19,000 the previous year.

Next week, the top uniformed officers of all the branches of the U.S. military will appear before Congress to testify about sexual assault as lawmakers weigh legislation to address the issue.

One proposal would take responsibility for prosecuting sex crimes out of the victim's chain of command and put it in the hands of specialized prosecutors.

Burke criticized the Naval Academy's handling of the case, saying it was inappropriate that the players were able to keep playing with "no adverse consequences."

The Naval Academy is not the only elite U.S. military institution stained by recent allegations of sexual assault.

A sergeant at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point stands accused of videotaping female cadets in the showers. He has been charged with indecent acts, dereliction of duty and cruelty, the Army said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with graduates at West Point on Saturday, calling sexual assault a "scourge" on the military.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Ticketholders for both magic shows and caper movies are required to engage in a certain suspension of disbelief, so that they might enjoy the wonders unfolding before them without ruining things by asking too many questions.

"Now You See Me," a heist film peppered with onstage legerdemain, will test the limits of your willingness to go with the flow. The explanations behind the bank robberies defy logic, granted - but at least they're explanations.

The plot, on the other hand, takes a corkscrew spin that may or may not fling you out of the theater.

A quartet of magicians - a disgraced hypnotist (played by Woody Harrelson), a smug street illusionist (Jesse Eisenberg), an escape artist (Isla Fisher) and a pickpocket and lock-picker (Dave Franco) - are recruited by an anonymous benefactor to become the Four Horsemen, a glitzy and high-tech magic act that packs the big room at Las Vegas' MGM Grand for one night only.

(I don't include the characters' names because, frankly, the movie doesn't care about them; you won't know any more about them in the last scene than you do in the first.)

Their Vegas show involves teleporting an audience member into a French bank vault, getting away with 30 million Euros, and showering the bills onto their audience. This attracts the attention of an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and a French sidekick (Mlanie Laurent of "Inglourious Basterds") assigned to him by INTERPOL.

But as Eisenberg (reprising his cleverer-than-thou bit from "The Social Network") tells Ruffalo, to accuse them of the crime would be to acknowledge that magic exists.

Also tagging along for two more performances-turned-heists are the magicians' wealthy producer (Michael Caine) as well as a professional magic-debunker (Morgan Freeman) out to expose the Horsemen as phonies.

Director Louis Leterrier ("The Transporter," the "Clash of the Titans" remake), working from a script by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt, makes the first half of the movie pop, no mean feat when dealing with the essential paradox of magic on film - thanks to the most basic of special effects, going all the way back to Georges Mlis, anyone in a movie can do magic, so there's no inherent thrill of seeing illusions, even ones that are exciting on stage, on the big screen.

There's an inclination to forgive these stock characters since all of these actors are capable of lifting them to a higher plane, but "Now You See Me" gets so enraptured in its double-twists and reversals that it doesn't give any of its cast members the time or space required to create something memorable out of the material.

What starts out as an engaging B-movie, one that tricks you and then shows you how it tricked you, sadly degenerates into an overly complicated mess with one or two twists too many. You can feel the energy leak out of this overlong (115 minutes) movie somewhere around the big car chase through Manhattan, and then "Now You See Me" wraps things up with a whammy of a plot twist that's momentarily unexpected but doesn't, upon any kind of reflection, pass the sniff test.

And if you're OK with the film playing you for a sap, you'll laugh and clap and wonder how that bird got into that hat. But if you think there's a difference between being tricked and being cheated, you may feel swindled.

The new culture minister fired the head of the opera house, part of a shakeup he said is aimed at injecting "new blood" across art and culture programs he says were stagnant and corrupt.

But staffers are refusing any other boss to replace Enas Abdel-Dayem. Tuesday night, they protested outside her office, accusing the minister of bending to pressure from Islamists, and some held a sit in overnight to prevent any replacement from entering.

Staffers have also closed the curtain on all performances. For the first time in the opera house's history, the opera Aida composed by Giuseppe Verdi and debuted to the world in 1871 in Cairo was cancelled in protest. Singers instead held up posters on stage that said, "No to Brotherhoodization."

"In a stand against a detailed plan to destroy culture and fine arts in Egypt we decided as artists and management to abstain from performing tonight's Opera Aida," conductor Nayer Nagi announced from the stage Tuesday evening. He vowed the halt would go on until the culture minister, Alaa Abdel-Aziz, is removed.

The row has opened a new front in the politically divided country, with performing artists joining a chorus of others who say they are fighting attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi to impose their control.

Other battles have raged in the judiciary, the education ministry, the agriculture ministry, and the media. Protests have erupted over fears that the Brotherhood has also tried to control the police and the Sunni world's pre-eminent seat of learning, Al-Azhar in Cairo.

The Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, denies trying to monopolize power for itself or other Islamists. But the confrontation illustrates an entrenched problem in reform since autocrat Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2011 and Islamists rose to power: Many want to see change and reform in government institutions, but some also don't trust the Morsi and the Brotherhood to do it, fearing they will impose a conservative religious agenda that disregards other viewpoints.

In the case of the Opera House, those fears were fueled by comments by an ultraconservative lawmaker in parliament this week. Nour Party member Gamal Hamid called for the abolition of ballet performances in Egypt which are usually held at the opera house describing it as "immoral" and "nude art".

So far, the culture minister, a professor in film editing who was appointed in a cabinet reshuffle three weeks ago, has not made any attempts to impose any overtly Islamist restrictions on the arts. But his opponents in the ministry fear his shakeup of staff aims to eventually do so.

The minister did not respond to calls by The Associated Press seeking comment on Abdel-Dayem's removal.

But Abdel-Aziz has said he is trying to clean up the ministry, which is in charge of arts and culture programs, museums and performing arts, after years of stagnation and corruption under Mubarak. Already, he has removed the head of the state book agency and the head of the fine arts department.

Speaking to the privately-owned Mehwar TV station after his appointment, Abdel-Aziz said the ministry needs to be overhauled. "Being a statesman is not easy. You have to work and achieve and make the most out of the months you are working, "he said. "The culture ministry is in shambles."

Abdel-Dayem, who was appointed about 15 months ago, several months before Morsi's election, said she was given no reason for her removal. Though told to vacate her office in 24 hours, Abdel-Dayem returned on Wednesday.

Smoking a slim cigarette, she spoke to the AP in her office late Tuesday as dozens of her supporters held their sit-in outside.

"There is a particular policy he's using to eradicate Egyptian identity and culture," she said of the new culture minister.

"He is coming in crashing head-on," Abdel-Dayem said. "Before he even knows what these agencies do, he immediately started requesting to cut down on fine arts activities."

Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, has historically been a cultural powerhouse in the region. Its black and white films from the 1950s and 1960s are still popular across the Middle East and Egyptian singers such as Umm Kalthoum and Abdel-Halim Hafez are household names and remain radio favorites.

The first opera house in the region was built under Khedive Ismail in Cairo in 1869 to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. A century later, the building was destroyed in a fire. Its new incarnation, the Cairo Opera House, was inaugurated in 1988 under Mubarak.

The Opera House staff has so far stood in solidarity with Abdel-Dayem.

Opera singer Reda Wakil announced that the culture minister approached him to replace her but he refused and said the move was aimed at dividing artists. Members of the opera say the minister then turned to a stage craft engineer. The ministry has not commented on a next-in-line.

Composer and pianist Omar Khairat, who has played in sold-out performances across the world, also cancelled his show at the opera house in solidarity.

Nagi, the conductor, told The Associated Press the decision to fire Abdel-Dayem is "weak and stupid". He accused the Brotherhood of being behind the move.

Brotherhood spokesman Ashraf Badr-Eddin dismissed the allegations as "baseless".

"Why don't they tell us who from the Brotherhood was hired? Did we stop the ballet and replace it with an Islamic performance?" he said.

Abdel-Aziz, who was little known in Egypt's tight-knit world of artists, is not a Brotherhood member, though he has at times seemed sympathetic with its agenda.

In an interview with the Muslim Brotherhood's website soon after his appointment, he responded to accusations that his appointment meant that Islamists are attempting to stifle performances.

"This talk of 'Islamizing culture' is a strange expression, as if it is a slur or a charge," he said. "The majority of Egyptians practice Islam." He decried what he called a "monopoly" by some intellectuals on the fine art scene in Egypt.

He also wrote a column in the Brotherhood-affiliated party's newspaper in January, criticizing the opposition for its stances against Morsi.

Still, some artists say the effect of rising Islamist influence is being felt since Mubarak's fall.

The artistic director of the nearly 60 year-old Cairo Ballet Company said she was told by the Opera House's management last year that a perennial show it held Tango and Bolero dances were too erotic and will not be held this year after audience complaints.

"Bolero was presented in the opening of the (new) Cairo Opera House and I, myself, was dancing," Erminya Kamel said. "Twenty-five years ago it was presented as one of the best performances, and now it is being criticized."

A longtime harp player for the opera, Manal Mohyieddin, says the situation in the ministry is an "embarrassment" for Egypt.

"This is not just about the Opera House. We are talking about a nation that is being occupied by a political trend that calls itself Islamic, but does it has nothing to do with Islam and does not represent Islam," she said.

He terrorizes Republicans. Or would that be Tweet-orizes?

With a spate of controversies undermining President Obama's credibility, Plouffe responded harshly to Rep. Darrell Issa calling White House press secretary Jay Carney a "paid liar." Plouffe tweeted: "Strong words from Mr. Grand Theft Auto and suspected arsonist/insurance swindler ... ."

Plouffe, a mild-mannered and widely respected operative, has nonetheless been yanking at his leash since leaving the White House early this year:

The Issa tweet was a cheap shot: The unproven allegations against the California lawmaker are decades old.  But there will be little sympathy for Issa, the House's chief Obama investigator who cherry-picked evidence and presumed guilt in an overwrought Sunday TV interview that stirred echoes of 1950s Senate demagogue Joe McCarthy.

In a fascinating story by Politico's , Plouffe defended his actions while Obama allies fretted that he went too far.

It's no coincidence that Plouffe's attack preceded two polls revealing that the IRS and other so-called scandals are eroding the public's faith in Obama. While anshows the president's job approval rating holding steady, afound that Obama's job approval had dropped six points since February.

According to Bloomberg, 47 percent of Americans say they don't believe Obama is telling the truth when he says he didn't know the IRS was giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups.

Democratic pollsters privately say that they've seen the same dichotomy in their surveys: Americans still approve of Obama personally, but they are starting to doubt his credibility and the competence of his administration. Don't look for such doubts in Plouffe's Twitter feed.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Anthony Lacavera, the entrepreneur behind the launch of Wind Mobile, said on Tuesday his group is interested in buying Mobilicity after the Canadian government effectively blocked Telus Corp'sbid for the small wireless company.

The possible combination of the two small wireless carriers would compliment Ottawa's push to boost competition in the telecommunications sector after the federal government on Tuesday, for the time being, effectively blocked large established providers from buying airwaves from struggling new players.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis earlier on Tuesday quashed the C$380 million ($367.34 million) bid from Telus, Canada's second largest wireless company by subscribers, for Mobilicity.

"Our past offers for Mobilicity stand and we look forward to having ongoing discussions with them," Lacavera, Wind's chairman and chief executive officer, told Reuters at a telecom conference in Toronto.

Lacavera is in the process of transferring his voting interest in Wind Mobile to Russia-focused Vimpelcom Ltd , but maintains a minority economic interest.

He said Wind had done due diligence on Mobilicity around a year ago, and that the government's removal of ambiguity on who could buy the valuable spectrum assets wireless companies covet had reinvigorated his desire for Wind Mobile to grow into a significant fourth national carrier.

Canada's wireless industry is dominated by Telus, BCE Inc's Bell unitand Rogers Communications , which each have more than 7 million customers. Wind has about 600,000.

"What this does is give me and Vimpelcom a solid policy foundation to build a business plan. There was a lot of ambiguity, up until this morning," Lacavera said.

"That clarity is excellent for all market players. It certainly positions us to revisit the Mobilicity bid."

Vimpelcom was not immediately reachable for a comment on its plans in Canada after the federal government's ruling on the Telus offer for Mobilicity.

Debt-laden Mobilicity, which along with Wind and several others bought airwaves in 2008 that Telus and its main rivals were barred from bidding on, has around 250,000 customers but is mostly coveted for its spectrum assets.

"The value in Mobilicity for us is the spectrum," Lacavera said. "Unfortunately there's very little value in the network or the subscribers."

(Additional reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Chris Reese)

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar and global shares recovered from one-month lows on Tuesday and German Bund futures eased, after weak U.S. data calmed concerns about an early cut in central bank stimulus.

The dollar rose above 100 yen and its indexclawed back some of the 1 percent fall seen on Monday after the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) index of U.S. factory activity fell to 49.0, its lowest since June 2009.

European stockswere 0.6 percent higher, tracking an overnight rebound in U.S. and Asian shares and looking to snap a two-day losing streak that has left them at their lowest level since early May.

The disappointing ISM data bolstered the view that it is still too early for the Federal Reserve to start winding down its support program. Nevertheless with such talk unlikely to go away, analysts saw recent large market swings continuing.

"Were are into this very volatile period which we were always going to have after such expansionary monetary policy," said National Australia Bank strategist Gavin Friend.

"Markets, in typical forward-looking fashion, are seeing the tapering as the beginning of the end of QE. You can argue that the Fed will still be buying significant quantities of bonds so markets shouldn't really react, but it is about the direction of travel."

As risk assets rebounded and investors kept positions tight ahead of the European Central Bank and Bank of England monthly meetings on Thursday and U.S. jobs data on Friday, German Bund futures dipped and peripheral euro zone debt edged up.

Commodity markets were also steadier. Copper climbed for a second session, while gold and oil were both little changed at $1,405 an ounce and $102 a barrel respectively.

JAPAN SWINGS, AUSTRALIA HOLDS

Many of the big moves were once again on Asian stock markets.

Japan's Nikkeiclimbed more than 2 percent, its biggest one-day rise in three weeks, as currency swings amplified moves ahead of Wednesday's announcement from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the third leg of his $1.4 trillion "Abenomics" stimulus strategy.

The latest changes are likely to centre on economic reforms but sources told Reuters the government could also include steps urging Japan's public pension funds to boost their investment in equities and overseas.

Australian sharesrose 0.3 percent and the Aussie dollar dropped 1 percent to $0.9671 after the Reserve Bank of Australia left interest rates unchanged as expected, but said there was scope for further easing.

The firmer U.S. dollar also pushed the kiwi dollar lower but had little impact on the euro which was steady at $1.3075.

Markets' focus was largely on the ECB's monthly meeting on Thursday with analysts expecting it to hold off from any fresh policy action to see whether economic recovery materializes in the second half of the year as it expects.

"We're still only in the second quarter, so I think in a few months' time we'll have a lot more visibility and emerging clarity as to whether this much-vaunted second half recovery is emerging and playing out," said Nomura economist Nick Matthews.

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

A confusing mix of shifting political views, apathy and indecision is brewing across Iran's capital. Taken together, it suggests the June 14 race to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be closer and more complex than reflected by the size of rallies or the depth of ties to the all-powerful theocracy both hallmarks of Jalili's bid that have earned him an aura of front-runner.

Instead, rivals such as Tehran Mayor Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf and Jalili's predecessor as nuclear envoy, Hasan Rowhani, are increasingly mentioned by voters wanting fewer West-bashing diatribes and more attention to Iran's sinking economy and its nuclear impasse with the West, according to dozens of interviews across Tehran by The Associated Press.

Many also expressed dismay over the disqualification of centrist ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, which dashed the hopes of reformist groups. Election overseers barred him from running, along with Ahmadinejad's protege Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth story in an occasional series examining the June 14 Iranian election and the wider global and internal Iranian consequences at the end of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's era.

___

The Islamic establishment and its guardians, led by the Revolutionary Guard, hold firm control of the Islamic Republic after crushing opposition forces in the chaotic wake of Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election four years ago. All key decisions remain in their hands, including the direction of Iran's nuclear program and the level of support for regional allies such as Syria's Bashar Assad.

The vote, however, is still important as a measure of Iranian priorities in a country under increasing strain from an economy unraveling under alleged mismanagement and international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.

In broad strokes, the choice is whether to endorse the high-voltage rhetoric of defiance favored by Jalili or the quieter diligence needed to address the ailing economy.

Across Tehran from the most neglected districts to Western-style high rises with doorman service conversations about the election often veered to the economy, rising prices and international isolation during interviews by the AP.

While it's impossible to extrapolate solid trends from such a snapshot of voters, the attention on the economic worries could boost candidates seen as sound fiscal stewards, such as Qalibaf. The frustrations over Iran's standoffs with the West, in turn, could favor candidates seen as capable of nudging Iran's ruling clerics on a more moderate course such as Rowhani or former Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref.

Meanwhile, a diverse range of Iranians ranging from liberal activists to 63-year-old psychology professor Yahya Seyyedi plan to boycott the vote. Their reasons fuse two powerful gripes: Relentless crackdowns on even modest political dissent since the unrest in 2009, and disgust over the rejection of moderate Rafsanjani.

"I would have voted for Rafsanjani," Seyyedi told the AP in the leafy north Tehran district of Farmaniaeh. "The rest have no plan to bypass the current international and economic crises."

Without credible pre-election polling in Iran, there is no way to accurately assess who is on top. The picture is further clouded by the rejection of the 78-year-old Rafsanjani, who is a rare political specimen in Iran: powerful and venerable enough to stand up to the ruling clerics and influence decisions. The remaining eight candidates all have varying degrees of ties to the theocracy and are not expected to press too hard against its authority. They witnessed how Ahmadinejad tried to do that and was left politically battered when the ruling clerics turned against him.

Jalili, a former professor and diplomat, surged into the foreground with fist-waving rallies that echoed Ahmadinejad's rise in 2005 from Tehran mayor to the presidency. But he seemed out of step Friday during an all-candidate televised debate that focused strongly on ways to deal with Iran's mounting economic troubles, including nearly 30 percent inflation and a national currency that has plunged in value in the past two years.

"I do not care about TV debates," said Khalil Alikhani, a metal shop worker and member of the Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary Basij corps in the south Tehran district of Javanmard Qassab. "I have heard from my comrades in Basij that (Jalili) is the best."

Handling the domestic economy is one of the main mandates of Iran's presidency. Qalibaf, in particular, used the debate to showcase his budget-handling credentials and quality-of-life projects. Qalibaf's city hall has doubled green space in overcrowded Tehran and improved public transportation and highways.

"Qalibaf has proved he can get things done as mayor," said Behrouz Ahmadi, a taxi driver in middle-class southeast Tehran. "The rest just produce promises without any clear record."

The mayor also has won the support of 45-year-old Bita Maskout in the affluent Saadatabad neighborhood in northwest Tehran. Four years ago, she voted for the reform-minded Green Movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is now under house arrest along with fellow former candidate Mahdi Karroubi.

"As they say often in American politics, 'It's the economy, stupid,'" said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, director of the Middle East Studies program at Syracuse University. "This is true in Iran, too."

Yet it's impossible to separate the economy from discussions over sanctions, which are set to tighten further July 1 with Washington targeting trade of energy-related technology and gold sales.

Two moderate-leaning candidates Rowhani and Aref are seen as possible middle-ground forces who could encourage the Islamic leadership to look for an elusive compromise: Seeking ways to ease the West's nuclear concerns without making key concessions such as uranium enrichment. The U.S. and allies fear Iran could eventually develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists it only seeks reactors for energy and medical research.

On Sunday, close allies of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami urged Rowhani and Aref to join forces in a "united front."

In the western neighborhood of Sadeghieh, Mahnaz Amiri, a teacher of Farsi literature in a girls' school, said she will now turn to Rowhani after backing Ahmadinejad in the past. It's a decision mostly based on economic survival with prices for some staples such as chicken rising threefold in the past year.

"Twice I voted for Ahmadinejad in hope of better life for me and my two daughters," she told the AP. "But I am paying now 5 percent of my monthly salary for two kilograms of cucumbers and one kilo of apricots."

But, just as often, there are those vowing to stay away on election day.

In Tehran's bazaar, a clothing shop owner Raza Saeedi, 30, said he is so dismayed at Iran's leadership he cannot cast a ballot. "Now the bazaar is mainly a pedestrians' passage rather than a shopping center," he groaned.

A shopper browsing the bazaar stalls, 46-year-old Khorshid Ahmadi, also is turning her back on the election in protest of the country's isolation.

"Every four years someone says he will save country from its miseries," said Ahmadi, who voted in 2009 for Mousavi. "All it ends up is costing more to survive."

Outside Tehran's prestigious Amir Kabir Industrial University, a group of nine students gathered to drink coffee and talk politics. They embodied the sense that the election is still up for grabs: Three plan to vote for Aref, four are undecided and two will boycott.

___

Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The legislation has been decades in the making, and is currently being considered by the House of Representatives, where it will likely face some opposition.

Nonetheless, many states are hoping it will pass, saying an Internet sales tax will allow them to bring in much-needed revenue.

The total estimates of how much money states can make by taxing purchases from outside their borders remains to be seen, and S&P said it "believes revenues would be unlikely to boost tax revenues significantly in the near term compared with the size of total state budgets."

S&P also said there will be no near-term credit implications.

But if the bill is delayed for several years and states do not pursue other revenue sources, there is a possibility state revenues will erode. That, in turn, would hurt their credit, the agency said.

(Reporting by Caryn Trokie, additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington)

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Moving carefully along a row of apple trees, two of Australia's newest agricultural workers check if the fruit is ripe or the soil needs water or fertilizer.

Meet "Mantis" and "Shrimp", agricultural robots being tested to do these tasks and more in a bid to cut costs and improve productivity in Australia's economically vital farm sector, which exported A$39.6 billion ($38.8 billion)of produce in 2012.

Australia is one of the leaders in the field and, with a minimum wage of A$15.96 per hour and a limited workforce, has a big incentive to use robots and other technology such as unmanned aircraft to improve efficiency.

It hopes to tap fast-growing Asian neighbors, where the swelling ranks of the middle class increasingly want more varied and better quality food from blueberries to beef.

"The adoption of new technology is going to be crucial for Australia to maintain its competitiveness in terms of the global agricultural sector," said Luke Matthews, commodities strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

"If we don't adopt new technology, we can give up on these high-flying ambitions of being the food bowl of Asia."

Agriculture now accounts for 2 percent of Australia's gross domestic product, but the government forecasts it could reach 5 percent by 2050. Its growth is particularly important now the once-booming mining sector is slowing.

Australia is the world's second-biggest wheat exporter and arable farmers are already using specialized technology aimed at improving efficiency, including satellite positioning software to allow farmers to map out land and soil to determine optimal inputs.

Using such technology to optimize the use of fertilizer can boost profitability at grain farms by 14 percent, according to a study by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

COLOUR RECEPTORS

A robot effortlessly plucking fruit is some way off, though a range of simpler tasks are within reach to add to existing technology such as automatic steering of harvesters.

Salah Sukkarieh, Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at the University of Sydney and developer of Mantis and Shrimp, says the next phase aims for robots to do increasingly complex jobs such as watering and ultimately harvesting.

"We have fitted them with a lot of sensors, vision, laser, radar and conductivity sensors - including GPS and thermal sensors," said Sukkarieh, speaking at his laboratory housing a collection of both ground robots and unmanned air vehicles.

The technology could have the biggest application in horticulture, Australia's third-largest agricultural sector with exports of $1.71 billion in the last marketing year, since a fixed farm layout lends itself better to using robots.

Robots and an unmanned air vehicle that are being developed at the University of Sydney had passed field tests at an almond farm in Mildura, Victoria state, said Sukkarieh.

Propelled by sets of wheels and about the height of a man, the robots were named after the native Mantis shrimp because of the marine crustacean's 16 different color receptors, capable of detecting up to 12 colors. Humans only have four, three of which pick up colors.

This capacity to recognize color already allows the robots to sense whether fruit is ripe.

The data can then be processed by computer algorithms to determine what action the robot should take. This could be to water or apply fertilizer or pesticides, or to sweep and prune vegetation, and eventually the aim is to harvest the crop.

"If tomorrow we got an apple, orange or tomato farmer that wants a robot to go up and down these tree crops reliably and accurately, we can do that within six months to a year."

"The question is can we make them more intelligent," added Sukkarieh, who also sees the technology being attached to standard farm vehicles and foresees a fully automated horticulture farm within 10 years.

BRUISED APPLES

Australian farmers, who depend on seasonal labor for jobs such as picking fruit and vegetables, said they would welcome high-tech help.

"Berry picking by a robot would be difficult but if they could produce a robot, I could make a significant saving," said Allan Dixon, co-owner of the Clyde River Berry Farm in New South Wales, who typically takes on five people every year.

To get enough agricultural workers, Australia allows in some labor from neighboring Pacific island countries and East Timor, as well as using backpackers on temporary work visas.

Some fruit farmers remain skeptical.

"Apples will always need to be harvested by hand, due to their fragile nature. They bruise very easily," said Lucinda Giblett, director at Newton Orchards in Western Australia.

"We see no current opportunities offered by agricultural robots. Even as a pruning device, application is very limited," added Giblett

PRODUCTIVITY

Further productivity gains will be needed if Australia is to reach its target of being the main food supplier to Asia.

A 2011 study by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics and Sciences said around two-thirds of the increase in the monetary value of agricultural production in the last 50 years in the country was down to gains in productivity

Another survey by the Grains Research and Development Corporation showed 67 percent of respondents in 2011 used auto-steer technology to guide machinery such as harvesters and sprayers, up from 47 percent in 2008.

Obstacles to using more technology remain, however, including the cost of buying or renting equipment and slower growth in research and development spending. Some studies show growth in the use of satellite imagery and soil mapping has stagnated in Australia and the United States in recent years.

Regardless of whether it can meet its targets to supply more food to Asia, Australia is expected to play a big role in global food security by being one of the test beds for new ways to produce food more efficiently in often harsh conditions.

(Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Michael Urquhart)