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In a tit-for-tat sanctions dispute over the situation in Ukraine, a top Russian official said Tuesday that Moscow would stop supplying the U.S. with rocket engines used in military satellite launches and suspend operation of GPS ground stations in Russian territory.

The moves come after Washington banned some high-tech equipment sales to Russia as part of sanctions in response to the annexation of Crimea.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's space program and a target of U.S. sanctions, says Moscow will only supply its powerful RD-180 and NK-33 engines if it is sure they will not be used for military launches.

But, he added: "We proceed from the fact that without guarantees that our engines are used for non-military spacecraft launches only, we won't be able to supply them to the U.S."

Rogozin also said that beginning June 1, 11 American Global Positioning System (GPS) stations on Russian soil would be shut down.

The "differential correction" stations provide a ground-based reference that makes GPS signals more accurate, so shutting them down would presumably affect GPS accuracy in some parts of the globe.

Moscow has its own version of GPS, a satellite navigation system known as GLONASS. The two countries had been working toward a reciprocal agreement to allow GLONASS stations on U.S. soil, but the deal has yet to be finalized.

The RD-180 is currently used as the first stage for the U.S. Atlas V launch vehicle built by United Launch Alliance, a consortium of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and a pair of NK-33s — originally developed for Russia's scuttled N1 moon shot rocket — make up the first stage of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares launch vehicle.

NPR's Corey Flintoff, reporting from Moscow, says "Rogozin also says Russia will not cooperate with a U.S. request to extend the life of the International Space Station beyond 2020."

Last month, Rogozin tweeted a suggestion that the U.S., which relies on Russia's Soyuz system to reach the International Space Station, should launch its astronauts "with a trampoline."

Ukraine says six of its soldiers were killed during an ambush by militants on Tuesday.

CNN reports the Ukrainian Defense Ministry called it a "terrorist attack." The network adds:

"The incident took place in the village of Oktyabrski in the Slovyansk region, about 20 kilometers from Kramatorsk, during 'a unit movement from the military base.' The location is in volatile eastern Ukraine.

" 'Our soldiers were attacked in an ambush. Terrorists attacked our land troops with grenades. The attackers were more than 30 people and set an ambush near the river,' the ministry said.

" 'After a long shootout, six soldiers of The Ukrainian Armed Services were killed,' the statement said.

"In another incident in eastern Ukraine, a separatist leader has been injured in a suspected assassination attempt, a spokesman said Tuesday, amid continuing turmoil in the wake of a controversial weekend referendum on independence."

In case you missed it, Europe's highest court has set a new precedent: Individuals in 28 European countries can now request the removal of search results they consider harmful. Is this ruling a big win for the individual? Or does this break the Internet?

Companies like Google already routinely field takedown requests for material that violates defamation or copyright, but this is different. The unappealable ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice requires search engines to consider takedown requests that are merely embarrassing or harmful.

"Data belongs to the individual, not to the company," said EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, who hailed the ruling. "Unless there is a good reason to retain this data, an individual should be empowered—by law—to request erasure of this data," she said.

Google Agrees To Change Display Of Search Results In Europe

Openness doesn't come naturally to China's Communist Party. After all, China is an authoritarian state where people have little right to know how they are governed. But Communist Party schools have been trying to change that over the years by teaching officials how to deal with the news media.

Earlier this month, Qin Chang, a host at Shanghai People's Radio, taught a class on the art of the press conference at China Executive Leadership Academy in Shanghai's sprawling Pudong district and I was invited to watch.

The students, dressed in dark jackets and windbreakers, worked for state-owned companies. Qin began by talking about a recent benzene spill in Western China. The first lesson for officials in that case, she said: don't wait for nearly a day to tell citizens their water is too dangerous to drink.

"Because they didn't handle the situation properly right off the bat, the first public news conference ran into huge problems," said Qin. "Within 24 hours, all kinds of discussion, opinions, rumors and even public distrust permeated the city."

The 'New' Communist Party

The leadership academy doesn't look like what you might expect of a Communist Party school. Instead of the sort of hulking, Soviet-style buildings the party has sometimes favored in the past, the main building here is a French-designed mix of angled glass and steel with a giant, patriotic red awning flanked by a long reflecting pool.

Qin's class this morning also includes a mock press conference.

"I don't want you to become props," says Qin, standing in a sleek conference room with ceiling cameras and flat-screen TVs. "I don't want you to just go along with the ideas of the government spokesperson. I especially hope that you guys can question, criticize and focus on the negative things."

But the first negative thing they focus on is me. I'm the only Western face in the room and I'm holding a long microphone.

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