George Bush Eased Restrictions On Export Of Superpowerful Computers To Russia

US president George Bush has eased the restrictions on export of superpowerful computers from the USA to Russia, as well as to quite a number of other countries, among them Israel, India, Pakistan, China and Latvia. As the RIA Novosti correspondent reports, the White House press service said this on Wednesday. Upon Bush's decision, the limiting "threshold" of capacity of computers export of which requires special individual licenses was heightened from the current 85 billion operations a second to 190 billion operations a second for all the countries of the so-called "third level", including Russia and the other countries of the former USSR, of the Middle East, Southern Asia and part of Eastern Europe. Explaining the decision of the US president, the press service also said that the lessening of the restrictions on export of computers from the USA is caused by the rapid growth of technological changes in the computer industry and by the fact that today powerful microprocessors have become far more accessible all across the world. In this connection changes are being made also in the general licensing of export of computers from the USA, and the "threshold" for license-free supplies of computers has been increased from the current 6.5 billion operations a second to 12 billion operations a second. The USA will, as before, observe the "actual embargo" on deliveries of computers to Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Cuba, the White House report reads.