http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/05/14/timfgneur01003.html?999

Tardy nation invites chaos at millennium celebrations

BY RICHARD OWEN

OFFICIALS given the task of ridding Italy of the millennium bug issued a warning yesterday that, with just over seven months to the deadline, a promised #2 million budget had yet to be approved by parliament - and they still had no powers to force companies and government departments to comply.

"Italy is going to crash, and we are going to be crucified," Romano Oneda, the education expert on Italy's Year 2000 Committee, said. "We are supposed to make things go so smoothly that nobody would realise there was ever a problem. Instead we will be the scapegoats. We have only consultative powers, and no one is listening to us."

Roberto Di Martino, a computer software expert on the committee, said "even now no executive wants to tell his company they have to spend both time and money on this". 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. "I don't think they have quite grasped what this is all about," one official said.

Planners in Italy and Vatican City are only now beginning to realise that they face a nightmare. The tourist industry is losing millions of pounds because of the Balkans war, and it is feared that many planning to see in the Holy Year in the Eternal City will go elsewhere because of Y2K.

"Imagine the dawn of the new millennium", said Il Messaggero, the Rome daily. "Twenty six million people have come to the Eternal City. But traffic lights and automatic banking machines are out of order, the airport is in chaos, food and water are running out. There could be panic and disorder." The Government has, belatedly, begun broadcasting radio advertisements explaining that the bug affects any system storing the year as two digits rather than four.

According to one survey, only 2 per cent of Italians have heard of the problem. The Y2K campaign has been put in the hands of Professor Ernesto Bettinelli, an energetic former junior Minister for Public Administration. But he continues to teach constitutional law at Padua University while running the committee, which started work in February. It has been allotted Ministry of Tourism rooms, with a staff of six, three telephones and one secretary, and draws on the unpaid services of 22 experts in such fields as banking, traffic control and food distribution.

Professor Bettinelli said: "It is rather like Italy's experience with qualifying for the euro. Italy often starts late and then makes up for lost time with bursts of acceleration." Others are less sanguine. "If you have to choose a day to be ill, fly on an airplane or get in a lift, avoid Italy on December 31," said La Repubblica. General Natalino Lecca, the professor's right-hand man, admits the country was a "relatively late starter" in computerising offices and services. "But this could be an advantage; it means we have fewer older-generation computers infected by the bug." He also sees an advantage in Italy's family-owned food stores, which mostly "still do everything by hand".

But Valeria Severini, an economist, said the dangers were being underestimated. "Fiat's computer system went down for six days recently, even though they had spent #50 million on a debugging programme." She predicted a big fall in industrial production next year.

The bureaucracy is grinding to a halt, social security and pension payments being made by hand. Many hospitals have taken little or no action. But some point out that Italian life is already "organised chaos", so if urban support systems collapse, no one will notice. Said Beppe Severgnini of Corriere della Sera: "We have a gift for transforming any crisis into one big party."

-- Mron (mronmai@hotmail.com), May 15, 1999

Answers

jeeze,makes ya wish that the us existed in a vacuum....

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), May 15, 1999.

Paul Milne is an Optimist!!!

-- K.Stevens (kstevens@_its_all_going_South_in_2000.com), May 15, 1999.

Would one of the economic gurus on this forum please tell me the impact of Italy going in the toilet. What do we get from them? One of my DGI friends laughed when I told him Italy was toast. I could not explain to him why Italy was so important. Help please.

-- Inquiring mind (wants@toknow.edu), May 15, 1999.

Inq Mind,

Think about it - is Italy gonna be the only country that goes tits- up??

I don't think so.

Extrapolate.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 15, 1999.

And... their President just resigned...just a coincidence?

R un while you can and don't look back!

-- @ (@@@.@), May 15, 1999.

And look who was installed,

"Scalfaro's successor Ciampi, governor of the Bank of Italy for 14 years whom he installed as prime minister in 1993, will be sworn in on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) before a special joint session of parliament."

A banker no less... :)

I wonder why :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 15, 1999.

"Scalfaro's successor Ciampi, governor of the Bank of Italy for 14 years whom he installed as prime minister in 1993, will be sworn in on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) before a special joint session of parliament."

"Ciampi, 78, who had served as treasury minister until his election as Italy's 10th president, is an internationally respected figure credited with making the country fit for the single European currency against staggering odds."

"He was elected last Thursday after a rare display of consensus across Italy's chequered political spectrum and he subsequently resigned as chairman of the International Monetary Fund's main policy-making body, the Interim Committee."

This smells an awful lot like a New World Order move to me...Nikoli, comments?

-- @ (@@@.@), May 15, 1999.

Andy,

Wow! We definitely think the same way - most of the time.

-- @ (@@@.@), May 15, 1999.

Imports from Italy (in US dollars):

JEWELRY, GOLDSMITHS' & SILVERSMITHS' WARES ETC 1,343,000,000
FOOTWEAR 1,198,000,000
FURNITURE & PTS; BEDDING, MATTRESSES, ETC. 767,000,000
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES 527,000,000
MACHRY ETC SPECIALIZD FOR PARTICULR INDUSTRIES NES 495,000,000
MEN'S OR BOY'S COATS, JACKETS ETC, TEXT, NOT KNIT 443,000,000
PARTS AND ACCESSORIES OF MOTOR VEHICLES, ETC 427,000,000
AIRCRAFT & ASSOCIATED EQUIPMT; SPCECRFT VEH; & PTS 376,000,000
OPTICAL GOODS, NES 374,000,000
WOMEN/GIRLS COATS, CAPES ETC, TEX FABRIC, NOT KNIT 367,000,000
CIVIL ENGINEERING & CONTRACTORS' PLANT & EQUIPMENT 364,000,000
CLAY AND REFRACTORY CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS 327,000,000
TRUNKS, SUITCASES, VANITY CASES, BRIEFCASES, ETC 322,000,000
FIXED VEG FATS & OILS, SOFT, CRUDE, REFINED ETC 318,000,000
NONELECTRICAL MACHRY, TOOLS, APP & PTS, N.E.S. 315,000,000
LIME, CEMENT & FABRICATED CONSTRUCT MATERIALS NES 311,000,000
TEXTILE & LEATHER MACHINERY & PTS THEREOF N.E.S. 296,000,000
SPECIAL TRANSACTIONS & COMMOD NOT CLASSIF BY KIND 287,000,000
ARTICLES OF APPAREL OF TEXTILE FABRICS NES 275,000,000
MEDICAMENTS (INCLUDING VETERINARY MEDICAMENTS) 273,000,000

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), May 16, 1999.

"Italy is going to crash, and we are going to be crucified ... a promised #2 million budget had yet to be approved by parliament ... We are supposed to make things go so smoothly that nobody would realise there was ever a problem. Instead we will be the scapegoats. We have only consultative powers, and no one is listening to us ...

" ... even now no executive wants to tell his company they have to spend both time and money on this ... so vast there is no point in getting hysterical ... I don't think they have quite grasped what this is all about ... Planners in Italy and Vatican City are only now beginning to realise that they face a nightmare ...

" ... Imagine the dawn of the new millennium ... Twenty six million people have come to the Eternal City. But traffic lights and automatic banking machines are out of order, the airport is in chaos, food and water are running out. There could be panic and disorder ... According to one survey, only 2 per cent of Italians have heard of the problem ...

" ... dangers were being underestimated. "Fiat's computer system went down for six days recently, even though they had spent #50 million on a debugging programme." She predicted a big fall in industrial production next year ... The bureaucracy is grinding to a halt, social security and pension payments being made by hand. Many hospitals have taken little or no action ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------

AAIIIIIEEEEEEE !!!

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), May 16, 1999.

hmmm, looks like the konspiracy boyz are at it again..... but barking up the wrong tree.... again.

I mean, a couple of references to Sig. Ciampi being an ex-banker and having worked for the IMF, and that's enough for a NWO conspiracy?

No, no, no, no..... wait, I can do one better....

Let me introduce you to Mr. Licio Gelli. An ardent WWII fascist, Mr. Gelli was for years a powerful behind-the-scenes financier. However, in 1982 was convicted to a 12-year sentence for the fraudulent bankruptcy of the Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy's largest bank, and partly owned by the Vatican. It was also discovered that he was the head of P-2, a Masonic lodge which aimed to overthrow the government. This was to become Italy's biggest post-war scandal.

In 1983, Mr. Gelli bribed his way out of a Swiss prison, and was on the run for four years before being apprehended. When his conviction was upheld a year ago by the courts, he slipped away from this Tuscan mansion, and was on the run again for four months before being tracked down in the French Riviera and returned to Italy. Slippery fella.

What does this have to do with Mr. Ciampi, you say? Aha......

Gelli is 79 years old. Ciampi is 78.

Gelli is from the Tuscany region. Ciampi is a Tuscan name.

Roberto Benigni recently won two Oscars. He's also a Tuscan.

Prince Charles has a villa in Tuscany (true, but not exactly relevant)

So does Tony Blair (even more irrelevant, but could be connected)

Former President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro frequently traveled to Florence and was fond of Chianti (not really true, but could be).

Chianti was a favorite of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. (huh?)

Pope John Paul II liked to ski at the Abetone skiing resort. Abetone is in Tuscany. The Pope is 82 years old. Has been known to use Chianti for Mass.

Machiavelli was a Tuscan.

President of the EC (and former Italian Prime Miniter) Romano Prodi, is a Tuscan.

Former Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini is also a Tuscan.

Hmmmm, tie all these threads together.....

Why, it's suddenly clear.......

It's a plot to restore the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Gotta be.

(.....right....)

-- Morgan (morgan96@netscape.net), May 17, 1999.