Ban on Russian Space Launches Continues

Kazakhstan stood its ground in an acrimonious dispute with Moscow, maintaining a ban on all space launches from its Baikonur Cosmodrome after the crash this week of a Russian Proton rocket. Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Pavlov told a news briefing in the capital, Astana, that the ban will remain in place until a commission has established the exact reasons for the Monday accident and assessed the damage. Kazakhstan is demanding compensation. The Ecology Ministry in the former Soviet republic in Central Asia has complained that Russia paid little attention to the environmental risks of its Baikonur operations and ignored a May order from the ministry to suspend operations at the cosmodrome after June 1.