ASIA ECONOMY NOW | Small cities play growing role in film market

LUANDA - Movie goers line up to purchase tickets at a theater in Wuhan, Hubei province. China accounted for 8percent of the global film market with annual box-office receipts of $2.7 billion last year, according tofigures from the Motion Picture Association of America. Provided to China Daily

1,000 digital movie theaters with 3,000 screens in county-level sites

Movie ticket sales have gone crazy in the city of Panjin.

Compared with two years ago, in one of the fourth-tier city's "cineplexes" there are now nearlyas many tickets being sold in a month as there were in a whole year.

Annual box-office revenues in the city — in the southwest of Northeast China's Liaoning province — surged to 25.6 million yuan ($4.17 million) in 2012 from 2.65 million yuan the yearearlier, a year-on-year growth of 867 percent, according to statistics from EntGroup Consulting, a Beijing-based entertainment industry consultancy.

In April alone, the city's CJ CGV cineplex, owned by a South Korean theater operator, sold twomillion yuan's worth of tickets to 50,000 customers, said Guo Jinsheng, the manager of thetheater, which opened in January.

"And that performance is growing month-on-month," added Guo.

Panjin is now one of the fastest-growing third- and fourth-tier cities in terms ofbox-office receipts, and others cities enjoying similar growth include Langfangin Hebei province, and Yueyang in Hunan province.

Ticket sales are also gaining momentum in small cities in a countrythat is now the world's second-largest film market.

After the United States, China accounted for 8 percent of the globalfilm market with annual box-office receipts of $2.7 billion last year,according to figures released in March by the Motion PictureAssociation of America.

By May 12, China's total box-office revenues for the year exceeded8.1 billion yuan, up 39 percent.

Via|China Daily

THE RICHEST| Gold rises on weaker Chinese economic data

CHICAGO -- Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange roseslightly on weaker-than- expected Chinese economic data Monday. 

The most active gold contract for August delivery rose $3, or 0.22 percent, to settle at $1,386per ounce.

Chinese government released a series of economic data over the weekend: China's producerprice index fell 2.9 percent in May from a year earlier, quicker than a 2.6 percent decline inApril year on year; total social financing dropped by about a third to 1.19 trillion yuan ($194billion=) in May from April; total property investment in China in the first five months of this yearrose 20.6 percent to 2.68 trillion yuan, compared with a 21.1 percent rise in the first fourmonths; fixed-asset investment in non-rural areas rose 20.4 percent in the January-May periodyear on year, slower than the 20.6 percent increase recorded in the January-April period;value-added industrial output in China rose 9.2 percent in May year on year, slowing slightlyfrom a 9.3 percent increase in April; and exports rose 1 percent in May from a year earlier,much slower than April's increase of 14.7 percent. Disappointing Chinese economic figureswere nevertheless positive to gold prices.

Gold market is still waiting for directions, which will hinge heavily on when the US FederalReserve will scale down its bond- purchase program.

Though the underlying physical demand for gold remains strong, gold prices have registered a17-percent decline so far this year.

WORLD WAR 2013 | Large US force arrives in Jordan for deployment at Syria border amid Syria’s Qusayr victory

U.S. Marines landing in the Jordanian port of Aqaba

A large U.S. military force has reportedly arrived at a port in the south of Jordan, ready to be deployed at the country’s border with neighboring Syria.

The Israeli military intelligence website DEBKAfile has reported that 1,000 U.S troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force arrived at the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba on Tuesday and made their way to the north of the country under heavy Jordanian military escort.

According to DEBKAfile, Washington imposed a blackout on the arrival of the rapid-response force as the Pentagon only reported the sending of a Patriot missile battery and F-16 warplanes to Jordan for a military drill.

On Monday, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command based in Tampa, Florida, Lieutenant Colonel T.G. Taylor, confirmed that Patriot missile launchers and F-16 fighter jets “were approved for deployment to Jordan”.

The U.S. has sent numerous ground troops to Jordan over the past few months, mainly for operating a training camp for militants fighting against the Syrian government.

The recent deployment of U.S. troops to Jordan’s border with Syria comes amid rising concerns over U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Susan Rice, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as his next national security adviser.

According to Antiwar, with Rice taking the reins of the national security machinery of the White House, the U.S. will keep “a keen eye on military intervention in Syria”.

U.S. Senator John McCain, who met with several leaders of the foreign-backed militants in Syria last week, urged Obama on Sunday for a military intervention in Syria as he acknowledged that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has the upper hand in the Syrian conflict.

The developments come as Syrian government forces on Wednesday regained full control of the strategic city of Qusayr after three weeks of fighting with the foreign-backed militants.

Damascus has repeatedly said that the crisis in Syria is being engineered from outside the country. On May 18, President Assad said militants from 29 different countries were fighting against his government in different parts of the country.

Last week, the FBI confirmed the death of a 33-year-old American woman who had been fighting along with foreign-backed militants in Syria against the Syrian government.

Syrian TV showed a black VW Golf car, belonging to the American female militant, identified as Nicole Lynn, along with three other foreign militants including a British man, from which several Kalashnikovs were retrieved.

Via|Presstv.ir

QUSAYR BATTLE | Syrian Government Regains Key Border Town

BEIRUT—Syrian government forces pushed rebels out of a strategic town after two weeks of grueling battles, marking the biggest rebel stronghold to be taken by the government during the Syrian war.

The battle for Qusayr, described by both rebels and the regime as strategic territory, came to symbolize transnational sectarian struggle after Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite group, sent hundreds of fighters to battle alongside government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Assad and his closest supporters belong to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

War in Syria: Iran Warns Turkey of “Changing Game Rules” in Syria

A pro-Syrian Arab diplomatic source confirmed that Turkey has received, during the past couple of hours, a strict Iranian letter warning it of "changing the game rules" in Syria.

In an interview with Syrian daily al-Watan, the Arab source said that this warning comes as a clear response to the latest threats posed by Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyeb Erdogan, claiming that his country will target Kurdish combatants inside the Syrian territories.

Also, the Ankara-based Arab diplomat, whose country's government supports the Syrian al-Assad regime, said that Ankara had been preparing, in agreement with Washington, for a military interference in the Syrian crisis; under the pretext of Kurdish population.

However, Iran drew a line for the Turkish dreams, and informed it that any attack on the Syrian territories will witness a harsh attack; as Iran might put into force the mutual defense agreement signed with Syria, the source iterated.

Furthermore, the Arab diplomat went on to say that Turkey agreed with the US that a limited military interference in North Syria, especially in Aleppo, might introduce a buffer zone to be protected by the gangs funded and armed by Turkey, in cooperation with Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The said scenario however would be implemented only if the Syrian refugees in that area were evacuated, especially as they have become a burden on Erdogan's government; although they were supposed to be exploited to lead a UN resolution, imposing international sanctions on Syria.

Alepo 31/07/2012

SYRIA: REGIME CHANGE AND SMART POWER

The rise and fall of Turkey's Erdogan
By M K Bhadrakumar

Israel's emergence from the woodwork can signal only one thing: the Syrian crisis is moving towards the decisive phase. The lights have been switched on in the operation theatre and the carving of Syria is beginning. What is going to follow won't be a pretty sight at all since the patient is not under anesthesia, and the chief surgeon prefers to lead from behind while sidekicks do the dirty job.
So far, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have done the maximum they could to destabilize Syria and remove the regime headed President Bashar al-Assad. But Bashar is still holding out. Israeli expertise is now needed to complete the unfinished business.
Someone is needed to plunge a sharp knife deep into Bashar's back. Jordan's king can't do the job; he measures up only to Bashar's knees. The Saudi and Qatari sheikhs with their ponderous, flabby body are not used to physical activity; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization prefers to be left alone, having burnt its fingers in Libya with a bloody operation that borders on war crime. That leaves Turkey.
In principle, Turkey has the muscle power, but intervention in Syria is fraught with risks and one of the enduring legacies of Kemal Ataturk is that Turkey avoids taking risks. Besides, Turkey's military is not quite in top form.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also unable to carry the majority opinion within Turkey in favor of a war in Syria, and he is navigating a tricky path himself, trying to amend his country's constitution and make himself a real sultan - as if French President Francois Hollande were to combine the jobs of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Socialist Party chief Martine Aubry.
Obviously, Erdogan can't risk his career. Besides, there are imponderables - a potential backlash from the Alawite minority within Turkey (which resents the surge of Salafism under Erdogan's watch) and the perennial danger of walking into a trap set up by militant Kurds.
Al-Jazeera interviewed a leader of the Alawite sect in Turkey last week who expressed concern over the increasingly sectarian tone of Syria's internal strife inspired by Salafist Sunnis. They fear a Salafist surge within Turkey. The Alawites in Turkey see Assad "trying to hold together a tolerant, pluralist Syria".

Contingency plans
But all that is becoming irrelevant. The New York Times reported on Friday, quoting American officials in Washington, that US President Barack Obama is "increasing aid to the rebels and redoubling efforts to rally a coalition of like-minded countries to forcibly bring down the [Syrian] government".
It further reported that the CIA operatives who are based in southern Turkey "for several weeks" will continue with their mission to create violence against the Syrian regime. Meanwhile, the US and Turkey will also be working on putting together a post-Assad "provisional government" in Syria.
Accordingly, the leaders of Syria's proscribed Muslim Brotherhood held a four-day conclave in Istanbul and announced plans on Friday to create an "Islamic party". "We are ready for the post-Assad era, we have plans for the economy, the courts, politics", the Brotherhood's spokesman announced.
The New York Times said Washington is in close contact with Ankara and Tel Aviv to discuss "a broad range of contingency plans" over "how to manage a Syrian government collapse".
The emergent operational plan is that while Ankara steps up the covert operations inside Syria (bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and Qatar), Israel will cross the border into Syria from the south and attack Bashar's military and degrade its capacity to resist the Turkish threat.
Turkey has stepped up the psywar, projecting through the media that the Syrian regime is already tottering. Turkish commentators are spreading the word. Murat Yetkin of the establishment daily Hurriyet quoted a Turkish official as saying,

Our people [Turkish intelligence] in the field are observing that the urban majority, which has preferred to remain neutral so far, has begun to support the opposition groups. We think the Syrian people have begun to perceive that the administration is breaking up.

But such riveting stories also reflect the Turkish establishment's worry that the Syrian regime is still not showing signs of capitulation despite all the hits it took from the "rebels".

Mission to Moscow
Erdogan's best hope is that the Turkish intelligence could orchestrate some sort of "palace coup" in Damascus in the coming days or weeks. What suits Ankara will be to have Bashar replaced by a transitional structure that retains elements of the existing Baathist state structure, which could facilitate an orderly transfer of power to a new administration - that is to say, ideally, a transition not different from what followed in Egypt once Hosni Mubarak exited.
But Erdogan is unsure whether Turkey can swing an Egypt-like coup in Damascus. His dash to Moscow last Wednesday aimed at sounding out Moscow if a new and stable transitional structure could be put together in Damascus through some kind of international cooperation. (Obama lent his weight to Erdogan's mission by telephoning Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to discuss Syria.)
But curiously, just before Erdogan went into his scheduled meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, a massive terrorist attack took place in Damascus, killing the the Syrian defense minister and its intelligence chief. In the event, Moscow politely heard him out and assured Erdogan it would make a clinical separation between Russia's long-term strategic ties with Turkey and the Syrian issue. At any rate, the Russian stance remained unchanged, as evident from its veto at the United Security Council a week later.
Clearly, Moscow sees that the end game is underway in Syria. In an interview with the Russia Today on Friday, Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, spoke in exceptionally strong terms about what is happening. He said the Western strategy is to "whip us tensions in and around Syria at every opportunity".
Churkin said derisively, "There is much more geopolitics in their policy in Syria than humanism." Churkin also brought in Iran: "I would not rule out that then they would move on to Iran ... And this growing tension between Iran, the West and the Saudis is not helpful."
Prior to the visit to Moscow, Erdogan also travelled to Beijing, which also senses that the US is closing the deal on Syria. The Global Times newspaper commented in an editorial on Friday that "It's likely that the Assad administration will be overthrown ... chances of a political solution are becoming increasingly small ... changes in Syria might come rapidly."
US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon is travelling to Beijing to explore if the Chinese stance on Syria can be moderated.
Both Russia and China view the Erdogan era favorably for the upward curve in their ties with Turkey. Russia won a $20-$25 billion contract to build nuclear power plants in Turkey. China pulled in Turkey as a dialogue partner for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Turkey hosted a second military exercise with China recently and is aspiring to be a bridge between NATO and Beijing.

A man for all seasons
However, both Russia and China would factor in that as a "new cold war" builds up, Washington expects Turkey to get back into the fold and play its due role as ally in a vast swathe of land stretching from the Black Sea to the Caucasus and the Caspian and all the way to Central Asia. In the ultimate analysis, the US holds many trump cards, finessed through the Cold war era, to manipulate Turkish policies. This is quite evident from the centrality attached by Washington to the Iraqi Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani, in the overall US strategy.
Obama received Barzani in the White House recently. Barzani has become a "lynchpin" in the US-Turkish policies on Syria. This was within months of ExxonMobil signing up in October to develop the fabulous oil fields located in the Kurdistan region controlled by Barzani, ignoring protests from Baghdad that such a deal with a provincial authority bypassing the central government would violate Iraq's sovereignty.
Last week, the US oil giant Chevron announced that it too has acquired an 80% controlling share in a company operating in the region covering a combined area of 1,124 square kilometers that is under Barzani's control.
The entry of ExxonMobile and Chevron is a game-changer in the regional politics over Syria. The point is, the best transportation route to the world market for the massive oil and gas deposits in Kurdistan will be via the Syrian port city of Latakia on the eastern Mediterranean. Indeed, an altogether new dimension to the US-Turkish game plan on Syria comes into view.
Siyah Kalem, a Turkish engineering and construction company, has bid for the transportation of natural gas from Kurdistan. Evidently, somewhere in the subsoil, the interests of the Anatolian corporate business (which has links with Turkey's ruling Islamist party) and the country's foreign policy orientations toward Syria and Iraq are converging. The US and Turkish interests overlap in the geopolitics of northern Iraq's energy reserves.
But Barzani is not only a business partner for Washington and Ankara but also a key agent who could leverage Turkey's Kurdish problem. With Washington's backing, he has launched a project to bring together the various Kurdish factions - Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian - on to a new political track.
He held a meeting of the Kurdish factions in Arbil last month. Plainly, Barzani tried to bribe the leaders of various Kurdish factions with funds provided from Ankara. He claims he has succeeded in reconciling the different Kurdish groups in Syria. (The Kurdish insurgency in Turkey is led by ethnic Syrian Kurds.) He also claims to have persuaded the Syrian Kurds to snap their links with Bashar and line up with the Syrian opposition.
These tidings from Arbil have a vital bearing on Erdogan's future course on Syria. As a prominent analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Soner Cagaptay, pointed out recently, the bottom line is that "Syria's restless and well-organized Kurdish minority doesn't for the most part trust Turkey."

Salafism on Israeli wings
However, in the final analysis, only Israel can resolve Erdogan's dilemma. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated over the weekend, "Syria has advanced anti-aircraft missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and elements of chemical weapons. I directed the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] to prepare for a situation where we will need to consider the possibility of an attack."
Barak added that the "moment [Bashar] starts to fall, we [Israel] will conduct intelligence monitoring and will liaise with other agencies." He spoke after a secret visit by Donilon to Israel the previous weekend. Close on the heels of Donilon's consultations, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled to Tel Aviv after a historic meeting in Cairo with the newly elected President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, who assured Washington that he wouldn't contemplate creating any problems for Israel in a conceivable future.
Barak's disclosure tears apart the thin veil of indifference that Tel Aviv so far maintained over the Syrian developments. What emerges, in retrospect, is that Washington kept Israel in abeyance for the ripe moment to physically demolish Bashar's war machinery, an enterprise that Erdogan is unwilling or incapable of undertaking.
Most certainly, Erdogan was in the loop that he was going to partner Barak, but being a shrewd politician he kept up an appearance of agonizing publicly over the Syrian crisis - while, of course, covertly fueling it.
Simply put, Washington has outwitted Moscow and Beijing. It kept assuring Russia and China that a military intervention by the US all by itself or a Libya-style NATO operation was the last thing on Obama's mind. No doubt, Obama kept its word.
What is unfolding is a startlingly refreshing sight - Salafism riding the wings of the Israeli air force and landing in Damascus. Erdogan will now set out with renewed vigor to shake up the Bashar tree in Damascus, while any day from now Barak will begin chopping off the tree's branches in a lightning sweep.
Erdogan and Barak will make the Bashar tree so naked and helpless that it will realize the futility of standing upright any more. There is no "military intervention" involved here, no NATO operations, no Libya-like analogy can be drawn. Nor is Erdogan to order his army to march into Syria.
Secretary of State Clinton would say this is the "smart power". In a magnificent essay titled "The Art of Smart Power" penned by her last week, as she surveyed the curious twist to the tale of the Arab Spring, Clinton wrote that the US is nowadays "leading in new ways". [1]
Clinton underscored that US is expanding its "foreign-policy toolbox [to] integrate every asset and partner, and fundamentally change the way we [US] do business ... [the] common thread running through all our efforts is a commitment to adapt America's global leadership for the needs of a changing world."
At the end of the day, Erdogan will bite the bullet, which is greased with pork fat. The plain truth is that Israel is going to complete the messy job for him in Syria.
Erdogan has no choice but to accept that he belongs to Washington's "toolbox" - nothing more, nothing less. He was never destined for the role to lead the Muslim Middle East. The West was merely pandering to his well-known vanity. That role is Washington's exclusive prerogative.

Note:
1. The art of smart power, New Statesman, July 18, 2012.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Sanctions dodge: India to pay gold for Iran oil, China may follow

India has reportedly agreed to pay Tehran in gold for the oil it buys, in a move aimed at protecting Delhi from US-sanctions targeting countries who trade with Iran. China, another buyer of Iranian oil, may follow Delhi’s lead.

The report, by the Israeli-based news website DEBKAfile, states that Iran and India are negotiating backup alternatives with China and Russia, should the US and EU find a way to block the gold payment mechanism.

Delhi’s move is seen as surprising, as earlier India and Iran said they would switch to yen and rupees. China, another major importer of Iranian oil, may follow Delhi’s lead, the report adds.

India and China need to switch from the dollar in bilateral trade, since the US and EU have issued unilateral sanctions against the Iranian oil industry and financial institutions. The sanctions would ban any bank involved in oil trade with Iran from dealing with American and European counterparts.

Both India and China, two major buyers of Iranian oil accounting for 22 and 13 percent of its total export respectively, have refused to join such sanctions. This means they have to establish a reliable way of paying for crude, independently of the parts of the global financial system controlled by New York and London.

Delhi’s current plan is to effect payments through two state-owned banks, India’s UCO Bank and Turkey’s Halk Bankasi, Turkey being another country refusing to join the sanction spree.

The US issued sanctions against Iran in December, aiming to put pressure on the Islamic Republic and make its controversial nuclear program more transparent. The EU joined the initiative on Monday, banning new oil contracts with Iran, but allowing current ones to be fulfilled.

Australia on Tuesday became the latest country to voice plans for such an embargo, although the move would be more symbolic than practical, considering the country’s small share in Iran’s oil export.

Japan and South Korea, two other major buyers of Iranian crude, are in talks with Washington over the issue, although both Seoul and Tokyo are worried that stopping their imports could hurt their economies.

Iran, which is highly dependent on its sales of oil, is reacting to the sanction campaign nervously. Tehran says it will not yield to pressure, and threatens to block the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil tanker route in the Persian Gulf.

A presto

Haki

Via | flipsideoftheeconomy

If Iran e Russia dump dollar for rial and ruble; hike in crude oil prices and disrupt the interests of the US and its allies that depend on oil imports from Iran

Russian ruble notes (file photo)

Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Seyyed Reza Sajjadi says Iran and Russia have turned to their national hard currencies instead of the American dollar in reciprocal trade exchanges.

Sajjadi said on Saturday that the proposal for the replacement of the US dollar with the Iranian rial and Russian ruble was raised during a meeting between Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the 11th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) last June.
Permanent SCO members include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, along with India, Mongolia and Pakistan, is an observer state to the intergovernmental mutual-security organization.
The Iranian envoy said Tehran and Moscow switched to their national currencies in preference after the meeting between their presidents.
Sajjadi also pointed to Russia' strong opposition to sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, saying Russians have clearly announced that they will not accept fresh anti-Iran bids that target the country's Central Bank and financial institutions.
He also described new US sanctions against Iran as “illegal and unilateral”, stressing that Russia has at times called for a peaceful solution to Iran's atomic case through negotiations.
On December 31, US President Barack Obama signed into law fresh economic sanctions against Iran's Central Bank in an apparent bid to punish foreign companies and banks that do business with the Iranian financial institution.
The bill requires foreign financial firms to make a choice between doing business with Iran's Central Bank and oil sector or with the US financial sector.
The legislation will not take effect for six months in a bid to provide oil markets with time to adjust.
Meanwhile, energy experts say sanctions could lead to a major hike in crude oil prices and disrupt the interests of the US and its allies that depend on oil imports from Iran.
Facing major economic troubles, the United States is reportedly the world's largest debtor nation.
MP/HGH/IS

TOP SECRET: Silent weapons and the strategies of social and economic control. (This is for you – Read it!)

TOP SECRET: Silent weapons for quiet wars

An introductory programming manual

Operations Research
Technical Manual
TM-SW7905.1

Welcome Aboard

This publication marks the 25th anniversary of the Third World War, called the "Quiet War", being conducted using subjective biological warfare, fought with "silent weapons".

This book contains an introductory description of this war, its strategies, and its weaponry.

SECURITY

It is patently impossible to discuss social engineering or the automation of a society, i.e., the engineering of social automation systems (silent weapons) on a national or worldwide scale without implying extensive objectives of social control and destruction of human life, i.e., slavery and genocide.

This manual is in itself an analog declaration of intent. Such a writing must be secured from public scrutiny. Otherwise, it might be recognized as a technically formal declaration of domestic war. Furthermore, whenever any person or group of persons in a position of great power and without full knowledge and consent of the public, uses such knowledge and methodologies for economic conquest - it must be understood that a state of domestic warfare exists between said person or group of persons and the public.

The solution of today's problems requires an approach which is ruthlessly candid, with no agonizing over religious, moral or cultural values.

You have qualified for this project because of your ability to look at human society with cold objectivity, and yet analyze and discuss your observations and conclusions with others of similar intellectual capacity without the loss of discretion or humility. Such virtues are exercised in your own best interest. Do not deviate from them.

---

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

Silent weapon technology has evolved from Operations Research (O.R.), a strategic and tactical methodology developed under the Military Management in England during World War II. The original purpose of Operations Research was to study the strategic and tactical problems of air and land defense with the objective of effective use of limited military resources against foreign enemies (i.e., logistics).

It was soon recognized by those in positions of power that the same methods might be useful for totally controlling a society. But better tools were necessary.

Social engineering (the analysis and automation of a society) requires the correlation of great amounts of constantly changing economic information (data), so a high-speed computerized data-processing system was necessary which could race ahead of the society and predict when society would arrive for capitulation.

Relay computers were to slow, but the electronic computer, invented in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, filled the bill.

The next breakthrough was the development of the simplex method of linear programming in 1947 by the mathematician George B. Dantzig.

Then in 1948, the transistor, invented by J. Bardeen, W.H. Brattain, and W. Shockley, promised great expansion of the computer field by reducing space and power requirements.

Russia Today: Dancing queens; The most beautifull russian girls are learning to waltz

Analysis: Seawater helps but Japan nuclear crisis is not over

NEW YORK/VIENNA (Reuters) - Pumping seawater into troubled nuclear reactors in Japan should keep them from a catastrophic full-scale meltdown, but conditions are still so volatile that it is far too early to declare the emergency over, nuclear experts said.

It is probably the first time in the industry's 57-year history that seawater has been used in this way, a sign of how close Japan is to facing a major nuclear disaster following the massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday, according to the scientists.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) workers on Sunday were pouring seawater into two reactor cores at the coastal Fukushima Daiichi power plant and were considering using seawater on a third. Authorities have been forced to vent radioactive steam into the air to relieve pressure in the plant and reactors at the company's nearby Daini plant are also troubled.

"I am not aware of anyone using seawater to cool a reactor core before. They must be desperate to find water and the seawater was the only thing nearby," said Richard Meserve, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and president of the Carnegie Institution, in an interview on Sunday.

He said that suggests the company has decided it will sacrifice the reactors altogether, in what has become the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

The method being used to regain a semblance of control of the reactors smacks of last-resort desperation, said Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies and formerly a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy.

"I would describe this measure as a Hail Mary Pass but if they succeed, there is plenty of water in the ocean and if they have the capability to pump this water in the necessary volume and at the necessary rates...then they can stabilize the reactor," said Alvarez in a press conference on Saturday.

In a sign of how volatile the situation is, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement on Sunday in Washington that it fears the situation "took a turn for the worse as serious problems developed" at the Unit 3 reactor at Daiichi.

It said that statements from Tokyo Electric officials indicate that water levels have dropped so far that approximately 90 percent of the fuel rods in the core of the reactor were uncovered and that despite pumping in seawater the water level is still well below where it should be.

The Daiichi plant was shut immediately after the March 11 earthquake when outside power was lost. Diesel generators kept the cooling water running over the superheated uranium fuel rods in the reactor core for about an hour until water from the tsunami caused them to stop.

Without circulating cooling water, the water inside the core was heated by the rods and enough evaporated causing some to partially melt. Adding the seawater should keep the rods from melting further, the scientists said.

The fear is that if the uranium fuel rods did not cool, then they could melt the container that houses the core of the reactor, or even explode, releasing a radioactive material cloud.

The experts interviewed by Reuters cautioned that it is still far too early to definitively say that the day has been saved, especially as the information from the company and the authorities is incomplete.

But they say that with every hour that goes by, the chances of a major catastrophe is diminished -- as long as water from the sea or elsewhere, keeps reactor cores from overheating.

Japanese authorities "appear to be having enough success to have forestalled a definite core melt accident that's difficult to control," said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "After three days that is very good news."

Still, he said it was "still a touch-and-go situation."

A meltdown of nuclear fuel -- which contains most of the radioactivity -- would not lead to a major escape of potentially dangerous clouds into the air as long as thick walls shielding the reactor cores were not breached. The danger is that a full-scale meltdown could cause the pressures that could create that breach through an explosion.

The passage of time may help to reduce the danger, said Professor Richard Wakeford at the Dalton Nuclear Institute of Britain's University of Manchester.

"The reactor cores were still hot when the reactor shut down, as time goes on that radioactive decay heat will get less and the problem will get less," he said in a statement.

TEPCO officials have not publicly addressed the danger facing workers involved in the seawater operation at the three reactors. However, a statement from TEPCO Director Tsuyoshi Otani suggested there is some concern.

"TEPCO staff are currently working near and in the plants and injecting seawater and boric-acid into the reactors to cool down the core under such high radiation atmosphere in order to prevent catastrophe," he said in a press release.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there might have been a partial meltdown of the fuel rods at the No. 1 reactor at the Daiichi plant.

A German industry expert, however, said any partial meltdown "is not a disaster" and that a complete meltdown was unlikely.

Robert Engel, a structural analyst and senior engineer at Switzerland's Leibstadt nuclear power plant, said he believed Japanese authorities would be able to manage the situation at the damaged Fukushima facility north of Tokyo.

Engel was an external member of a team sent by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Japan after a 2007 earthquake that hit Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, at the time the largest such event to affect a nuclear complex.

"I think nobody can say at this time whether there is a small melting of any fuel elements or something like that. You have to inspect it afterwards," he said.

Normally, Engel said, the water level inside a reactor core is 3 to 4 meters above the fuel. If the rods are not covered by water for a short period of time then they will be damaged and a core melting is possible.

"I think they will be able to manage it ... when the (reactor) containment is intact only a small amount of radioactivity can go out, like in Three Mile Island," he said referring to the 1979 nuclear accident at a plant in Pennsylvania in the United States that badly setback the nuclear industry in the United states.

At Three Mile Island, a cooling fault led to a build-up of pressure in the radioactive core and resulted in a relatively small radiation leak.

But Wakeford, the University of Manchester professor, said the Japanese authorities were doing the right thing by evacuating people in the case the worst happens.

"If the fuel is uncovered by cooling water it could become so hot it begins to melt -- if all the fuel is uncovered you could get a large scale meltdown," he warned.

By Scott DiSavino and Fredrik Dahl