UKRAINE: Following talks, Russia’s gas giant Gazprom gave Ukraine another week before it will start demanding prepayment for gas, without which it has threatened to cut off supplies.

CEO Alexei Miller said today that the deadline will be pushed forward to next Monday.

Russia also offered to restore the discounted prices it previously granted, but Ukraine demanded an even better deal and called for arbitration to settle the dispute.

MEXICO: The Senate began discussions on Tuesday over enabling legislation to open the country’s oil industry to foreign investment for the first time since 1938.

President Enrique Pena Nieto had already signed the controversial measure after it was approved by Congress and ratified by a majority of states, but senators must now pass laws to implement it.

But the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party opposes the reforms and called for a referendum in 2015 to overturn them.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Gunbattles erupted between soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and rival Rwandan forces on their volatile border today.

The fighting began before dawn in Kanyesheza, about 12 miles north of the provincial capital Goma, and lasted over four hours, officials said.

US: New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said today that scientists investigating a radiation leak at the Carlsbad underground nuclear waste dump have identified five other potentially explosive containers in West Texas.

Mr Flynn said scientists investigating the February 14 leak had been unable to replicate the chemical event that caused a drum to breach. 

But he says they have found five other barrels from the same waste stream from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

IRAQ: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said today that the security failure in Mosul that allowed rebels to seize the city was the result of a “conspiracy,” and that security forces who fled should be punished.

He stopped short of assigning direct blame, however, choosing to focus instead on plans to fight back.

But immediately after he spoke, news arrived that Islamist rebels have now taken the town of Tikrit and were moving on Samarra.

US: Republicans were reeling today after little-known and underfunded tea party challenger David Brat crushed Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a stunning upset in a Republican primary election, denying the second most powerful man in the US House of Representatives a place on the November ballot.

The extreme right-winger’s double-digit and single-issue victory in Virginia was in one of the most profound political upsets in recent US history.

DENMARK: Parliament scrapped a law today requiring people to be sterilised as part of the sex change procedure.

As of September 1, all Danes over 18 will be able to apply for a legal gender change simply by stating that they belong to the other sex, after which they must complete a six-month “reflection period.”

“We have also dropped the requirement of sterilisation when transgendered people need a new personal identification number as part of a legal sex change,” Interior Minister Margrethe Vestager said.