U.S. Says APEC Should Act on Y2K

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From Yahoo Y2K news <:)=

SINGAPORE (AP) - Time for talking about the Y2K problem has run out in the Asia-Pacific region and leaders must begin seeking solutions, the top U.S. millennium bug troubleshooter said Thursday.

The warning by John Koskinen, head of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, came a day after the Clinton administration predicted the greatest threat to America from the Year 2000 glitch could come from computer failures overseas.

In its latest report on preparing for the Y2K problem, the White House has said failures are all but certain in some foreign countries because of their late efforts to fix systems.

``We're at the stage when we need to go beyond awareness and focus on action,'' Koskinen told experts in Singapore via video link from Washington.

Koskinen was addressing 150 experts from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum who gathered for a two-day conference on the millennium bug. The glitch, an offshoot of old programming that doesn't distinguish between the years 1900 and 2000, could cause catastrophic computer shutdowns on Jan. 1.

Several experts have said the forum's aim is not to judge the region's readiness for combating the problem. Instead, they said, they will identify areas that might break down and spread to other economies in the region.

But Koskinen called for a more solution-oriented approach, noting there are ``only 254 days to go'' until the end of the year.

``Thinking about this conference, it's clear we must be moving on from discussing the nature of the problem and simply sharing the information,'' Koskinen said.

Rather, he said, major problems in the region should be identified and solutions to them suggested.

``We need to focus in depth on specific problems,'' such as transportation, energy, telecommunications and financial services, he said.

In another speech at the Singapore gathering, Takeo Shiina, a Y2K expert from Japan, said it is ``very important'' for governments and businesses as well as individuals to make contingency plans for Jan. 1.

``Every family should have its own contingency plans,'' to avoid panicking and social unrest, Shiina said.

APEC includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and the United States.

As one of the first countries to enter the year 2000, experts in New Zealand are worried they will be jammed with inquiries from around the world on how things went Jan. 1.

``We think a mechanism should be set up so that institutions and individuals from all over the world don't call us all at once,'' John Good, an adviser to New Zealand's Y2K Readiness Commission, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 22, 1999

Answers

We already have the mechanism on this group.. me

For those who dont know I have agreed to post over the millennium transition period so as to appraise people of how things are going in New Zealand.

That is, all other things being equal.

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), April 22, 1999.


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