Kyrgyzstan's Prime Minister, Nikolai Tanayev, has vowed to prevent the country from becoming a uranium wasteland. His statement followed a public outcry against a Kyrgyz company's plans to process uranium from Germany. "The country needs to solve problems regarding its own uranium waste sites first,' Tanayev said in a cabinet meeting.

The Kara-Balta Ore Processing Factory signed a us $1-million contract with a German company to process graphite containing uranium. But the people's protests have made the government wary about granting it a licence. Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, already has several uranium waste sites. They sprouted in the country when it was a key supplier of the radioactive substance. Some of these spots, located in landslide-prone areas, are decaying. Consequently, water supplies in Central Asia's Ferghana valley