Protesters demanded the premier"s resignation...

On January 13, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a resolution excluding the production of pulp, paper and cardboard from the list of operations banned in the Baikal nature reserve. Environmentalists decried the move and are planning to appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev.

Almost a thousand protesters gathered in Baikalsk, the Irkutsk Region town centered around the controversial plant, to rally against the mill"s reopening, respected business daily Kommersant said. Local environmentalists and politicians shouted "Putin Get Fired!" but no menace was directed at Medvedev.

"The fact that Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev] has so far kept silent, gives us hope. We should invite him to set up and chair a council on Baikal preservation," the paper quoted Anton Romanov, a local legislator, as saying.

A public campaign to close or convert the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, built in 1966 on the shores of the world"s largest freshwater lake, became one of the symbols of Glasnost,

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