BIG COMPANIES FALLING BEHIND IN YEAR 2000 REPAIRS
Barnaby J. Feder, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 5/17/99

According to a recent survey of chief information officers and project managers by CAP GEMINI AMERICA, the largest companies in the nation continue to fall behind their schedules for Year 2000 repairs. What is most disturbing is that 22 percent say they do not expect to have all of their critical systems tested and ready when the clock ticks over to January 1, 2000. That number is up from 16 percent in November and 12 percent last August.

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Y2K TO KILL TWO-THIRDS OF BALTIC & RUSSIAN BUSINESSES
Lucas Rozsa, WESTERGAARD YEAR 2000, 5/20/99

After completing an exhaustive global study of individual country's preparations for the Year 2000 crisis, the GARTNERGROUP has projected that fully two thirds of Baltic and Russian businesses will fail as a result of direct and indirect consequences of Year 2000 equipment and computer failures. The conclusions match those of international and local Y2K analysts, including those working for American intelligence and diplomatic communities, such as the CIA.

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VENEZUELA IN SERIOUS TROUBLE
REUTERS, 5/26/99

"Public services could be paralyzed, mainly because of problems with electricity." The head of the government Central Office of Statistics and Computing, Gustavo Mendez, said Venezuela was one of the least well-prepared countries in the world.

[Note: The U.S. Senate Report on Y2K indicates that 50 percent of the oil used in the U.S. is imported. Venezuela is the leading source, providing 16.2 percent of the oil imported from foreign countries. ]

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ITALIAN Y2K PREPARATIONS IN CHAOS
Richard Owen, THE TIMES -UK, 5/14/99

With just seven months to the deadline, officials in Italy are only now waking up to the magnitude of the Y2K problem facing them. "Italy is going to crash, and we are going to be crucified," says Romano Oneda, the education consultant on Italy's Year 2000 Committee...Augusto Leggio, whose task is to persuade the transport and telecommunications sectors to face up to Y2K, said the problem was "so vast there is no point in getting hysterical." He said the Interior Ministry, which controls police and immigration services, hoped to guarantee most essential services by the end of this year, but would not be fully compliant until July 2000. According to one survey, only two percent of Italians have heard of the Y2K problem.

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AFRICA DECLARES MILLENNIUM BUG AN EMERGENCY
PANAFRICAN NEWS AGENCY, 5/14&15/99

At the first Y2K conference of its kind in Africa, high-level officials and technical managers from 45 African states and organizations have declared the problem an emergency of the highest priority... Of particular concern are airports in Africa, which may face a possible embargo on their operations. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had issued questionnaires to airports of member countries, but the response from Africa has been very slow. "What it means is that most airlines cannot fly to such airports in 2000," said IATA Coordinator of Africa's Y2K project, Gabriel Wolde.

(Also see: www.africanews.org

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"We've told our local governments and state governments that they need to be prepared to handle emergencies on their own, since the federal government can't be everywhere dealing with every problem in light of the large number of problems that we are likely to have."
John Koskinen, the President's Year 2000 Chairman, 4/22/99

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"I cannot be optimistic. I am generally concerned about the possibility of power shortages...Supermarket supplies may be disrupted...It's clear we can't solve the whole problem, so we have to allow some systems to die so mission-critical systems can work.... Pay attention to the things that are vulnerable in your life and make contingency plans...Don't panic, but don't spend too much time sleeping, either."
Senator Robert Bennett, Chairman of the Senate's Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem

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"This is not a prediction, it is a certainty – there will be serious disruption in the world's financial services industry.... It's going to be ugly."
THE SUNDAY TIMES, London

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Y2K GLITCHES COULD SHUT DOWN OIL REFINERIES
E. L. Core, WESTERGAARD YEAR 2000, 6/2/99

In late 1997, one oil company's engineers testing valve control equipment in their refineries discovered thousands of terminals controlling the dispensation of oil to have microchips with Y2K problems. All of the chips required replacement. However, it was discovered that the replacement chips would not fit on the existing motherboards. It was therefore necessary to order both new chips and motherboards. Worse still, the replacement motherboards were found not to fit the old valves, so the valves themselves had to be replaced. This example demonstrates how a Y2K problem can escalate beyond the original fault to include systems that may actually be compliant. An item's Y2K compliancy is therefore no guarantee that its replacement will not be necessitated by problems arising in other equipment.

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HALF OF NATION'S HOSPITALS NOT Y2K COMPLIANT
Norma Wagner, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 6/10/99

Half the 6,000 hospitals in the U.S. will not be Y2K compliant when the new year rolls around, says Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), Chair of the Senate's Y2K committee. Particularly unprepared are hospitals in rural areas, adds Mark Stoddard, President and CEO of the Rural Health Management Corp., who claims that because patient loads in those facilities are not as high as in urban hospitals, administrators have no way to make up the losses.

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Y2K TRADE PROBLEMS LOOM FOR POOR COUNTRIES
REUTERS, 6/26/99

A "significant number" of developing countries face severe trade disruption and a collapse of customs operations at year's end because they are not ready to cope with the year 2000 problem, a U.N. agency has warned.

Jean Gurunlian, a senior official of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said trade could be interrupted for these countries for weeks or "maybe months."

Of the 75 countries using ASYCUDA, UNCTAD's Automated System for Customs Data and Management set up in the 1980s, some 35 to 40 are considered as having a high-risk of being affected by the Y2K problem...

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FEARS OF CHAOS AS FIRMS RISK BUG EFFECT
Mark Henderson, BUSINESS NEWS, 6/28/99

BRITAIN is facing economic meltdown next year because hundreds of our largest companies are playing "Russian roulette" with the millennium bug, an independent watchdog will warn the City of London today.

Up to 300 of Britain's top 1,000 firms are risking tens of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of profits because crucial technology is unlikely to be bug-compliant by the end of the year, according to a comprehensive survey by Taskforce 2000 and Dibb Lupton Alsop, the firm of solicitors.

If the worst-case scenario predicted in the report happens, London's financial markets could be thrown into chaos as thousands of computers crash because they cannot cope with the date change.

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ONLY ONE-THIRD OF RUSSIA'S VITAL COMPUTERS Y2K READY

ASSOCIATED PRESS, 7/12/99

Only one-third of Russia's vital computer systems are ready for the so-called Millennium Bug, and the government probably won't have the money to fix the rest in time, officials said Monday...

Russia has been slow to address the Millennium Bug because of more pressing problems, including a severe cash shortage.

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"I attended a Y2K presentation by Joanne Isham, the Associate Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Central Intelligence Agency, on June 25, 1999, as part of the Society of Women Engineers national convention. Her presentation was very dark regarding the Y2K remediation status of foreign countries. She indicated that one of the CIA's main concerns is rioting and unrest in other countries, sparked by anger at their governments for failure of public services, and anger at the United States for causing the Y2K problem in the first place, either accidently or on purpose. This could lead to the overthrow of several governments in the Year 2000. Also, terrorists could use Y2K disruptions as an excuse/opportunity to attack U.S. facilities, both domestically and overseas, such as embassies and corporate subsidiaries. Oil shortages due to disruptions in drilling, refining, and distribution are also a possibility. The CIA is taking Y2K very seriously and investigating ways to protect Americans living overseas, as well as U.S. interests."
Lisa Clifton, CIVIC PREPAREDNESS DISCUSSION LIST, 6/26/99

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"Y2k is perceived as a business problem with threats to business, not as a social problem with society at risk. Society in fact is the threat to business, and Y2k gets managed from that perspective. No organization of society- wide influence speaks for society. FEMA, the Red Cross, and of course Government in its full range all look to preserving markets as their legitimate concern, with the 'public' to be manipulated for the least risk to business. Business is more worried by cash flows now, than by cash flows later, and as a result is more worried by panic now (since Y2k doesn't happen now) than Y2k effects later. From a market point of view, the future is deeply discounted. Carl Quigley, a teacher of Clinton's has been quoted as saying 'Capitalism is the system of accounting that does not account for social costs.' The people and communities can handle bad news, because of lots of flexibility and creativity, but the market cannot. Bad news always brings it down, and is always a house of cards, whereas society is responsive and can be good in a crisis...Y2k raises the most fundamental issues of social policy where the techno/financial market driven complex can diverge from social usefulness. We have created the conditions where the market can be doing well, but the people are doing badly."
Doug Carmichael, 6/15/99

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CALIFORNIA FRAUGHT WITH UNCERTAINTY

Dave Lesher, LA TIMES, 6/16/99

Legislators said they were encouraged earlier this year when Davis made Y2K repairs a priority for his administration. The governor ordered every department to abandon other computer work, and he assigned a team of industry and government experts to attack the problem.

But lawmakers said their confidence dropped after the Davis team issued a recent status report.

"I'm not certain this is going to get done," Assemblyman John Dutra (D-Fremont) said after hearing the administration's report. "It's alarming. . . . I'd like significantly more assurance."

The report covered only five of the state's 116 departments, focusing first on the most critical. Confusing and admittedly outdated data in the report also caused lawmakers to question how some of the critical areas could be categorized as low risk.

Vasconcellos complained, for example, that the rating assigned to the Department of Transportation was dropped from high risk in April to low risk in May even though the same tasks were still listed as incomplete in each month.

Cortez blamed a paperwork error...

Wilson signed an executive order in 1997 demanding that every critical computer system complete its Y2K repairs by last December, a deadline that was not met by a single state department.

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"Virtually everyone predicts some level of service disruption but downplays the significance of its effects by using verbiage such as 'minimal impact' and 'sporadic disruption' or language to that effect. As a responsible police administrator, I have absolutely no choice other than to plan for the worst-case scenario and hope, as you, for something significantly less. It would be unacceptable and irresponsible for me to do anything less. If anything, I'm attempting to dispel the Armageddon/survivalist mentality that will continue to grow disproportionately due to a lack of information from responsible and well-respected sources. We have before us an opportunity and a challenge to transform fear and concern into a creative and effective action plan that will pay significant dividends to our community whether Y2K-related problems come to pass or not."
Jim Brown, Chief of Police, Hudson, Ohio

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Y2K GLITCH LIKELY TO DISRUPT TRADE
Jim Wolf, REUTERS, 7/21/99

"Y2K-related disruptions in the international flow of goods and services are likely; a breakdown in any part of the supply chain would have a serious impact on the U.S. and world economies.'"

The international economy is "vulnerable" because Y2K-related failures in the supply chains of one country or region could disrupt others' ability to keep factories working, transportation systems running, food supplied and people employed, the State Department's inspector general added.

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THE YEAR 2000 RECESSION
Ed Yardini, book excerpt, 5/10/99

Currently, I believe there is a 70% chance of such a worldwide recession, which could last 12 months starting in January 2000 and could be as severe as the 1973-74 global recession. That downturn was caused by the OPEC oil crisis, which is a useful analogy for thinking about the potential economic consequences of Y2K. Just as oil is a vital resource for our global economy, so is information. If the supply of information is disrupted, many economic activities will be impaired, if not entirely halted...It wouldn'take much to disrupt the global just-in-time system...Even if most domestic supply chains are fixed, it is very likely that breaks in the global supply chain will occur. This is bound to disrupt production of just-in-time manufacturers everywhere...The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1051.7 on January 11, 1973. It plunged 45% to a trough of 577.6 on December 6, 1974. The bear market lasted 23 months. At this time, I anticipate a 30% drop in stock prices caused by a Year 2000 recession.

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"MIDNIGHT CROSSING"
James A. Kitfield, AIR FORCE MAGAZINE, 7/99

If you want a guide for your local community, here's the site. Here's why you may want this: Although some facilitation and information sharing is available, neither government at the state or federal level, nor the private sector, are in a position to address Y2K risks at the community level. Citizens will invariably look to their local government to ensure the safety, health, and welfare of their communities. And although local government generally counts on being able to ask for help from state and federal agencies when problems arise, these agencies may be too busy with their own Y2K problems just when your community needs them most.

This means that citizens will be looking for leadership from their elected officials and city managers to guide them safely into the new millennium. The Y2K "Millennium Management Blueprint(TM)" provides local government with a plan...

The new version (v16.30) of the "Millennium Management Blueprint(TM) – A Y2K Leadership Blueprint for Local Government" is now available for download or printing at www.tma2000.org.

Here's the first paragraph of the Blueprint: "We know that the Y2K problem may impact the ability of local governments to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their communities. How big that impact will be, or for how long, is unknown and open to speculation. But one thing is certain: the potential for Y2K damage and disruption at the local level is real and we need to prepare our communities. Only local government is in a position to provide the leadership needed to bring together all of the various citizen, business, and government groups that need to cooperate for the common good. The Millennium Management Blueprint(TM) was developed to help local leaders manage community preparedness."

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80 COUNTRIES SHOW RISK FOR YEAR 2000 COMPUTER WOES
Stephen Barr and Roberto Suro, WASHINGTON POST SERVICE, 7/24/99

A State Department survey of 161 nations has found that about half of the countries face a medium to high risk of Year 2000 computer breakdowns in their telecommunications, energy and transportation sectors, which may have an impact on international trade.

"It would be prudent to recognize that Y2K-related failures are inevitable, both here and abroad," Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, the State Department's inspector general, told a Senate committee Thursday.

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"Assumption 1: A certain percentage of computers will not be compliant by 1/1/2000. No one can know exactly what that will be.

Assumption 2: Due to the interconnectedness of global infrastructure due to the computerization of the last 30 years, no one can know what percent of non-compliant computers/embedded chips it would take to cause a collapse.

Conclusion: The possibility of infrastructure rupture globally or regionally on a global scale is not remote enough to ignore."
Tom Osher, CIVIC PREPAREDNESS DISCUSSION LIST, 7/26/99