The US Defense Department's decision was taken after Newfoundland Prime Minister Danny Williams ordered the evacuation of hundreds of oil workers in his Atlantic coast province ahead of Monday's planned launch.

Canada "strongly urged" the United States to postpone the launch due to concerns that debris from the Titan 4 rocket, which was to be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, would fall on the platforms.

Debris were expected to fall 27 kilometers (17 miles) from the Hibernia oil platform used by a consortium that includes ExxonMobil Canada, Chevron Canada Resources and Petro-Canada.

The platform is 350 kilometersmiles) southeast of Newfoundland.

The delay will allow the United States "to calculate a new trajectory, or whatever else they're going to do," Graham told reporters.

This is a newly edited version of a previous report that had translation errors in it. All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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Kazakhs, Russians Create Space Venture
Astana, Kazakhstan (UPI) Apr 05, 2005
Russia and Kazakhstan have signed founding documents for a joint space venture, Russian space officials said Tuesday. The center will be named Baiterek and planned for completion by the en d of 2008, Russian media reported earlier.