U.S. Sketches Global Y2K Roadmap

Updated 7:07 PM ET September 14, 1999

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said Tuesday that the Year 2000 computer glitch may knock out power grids, phone links and other vital services in China, Russia, Pakistan and many other countries.

In 196 updated consular information summaries, the State Department drew a vague global roadmap to Y2K, a coding glitch that could disrupt ill-prepared automated systems on Jan. 1.

The department stopped short, at least for now, of warning Americans against travel to any specific country for Y2K-related reasons.

But it said the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, home of the world's worst nuclear reactor accident in 1986 at Chernobyl, seems "unprepared to deal with the Y2K problem."

The British Foreign Office, in a separate but coordinated series of Y2K advisories Tuesday, advised against all "nonessential travel" to Ukraine over the new year and early January "until the situation becomes clearer."

In China's heartland but not in its coastal cities, the State Department cited a risk of potential Y2K-related disruption in banking, finance, telecommunications, medical services and electrical power.

Chinese authorities expect that any disruptions "will be concentrated in small- and medium-sized enterprises, and that there is a moderate risk of potential disruption in freight-forwarding and distribution networks," the China update said.

U.S. consular information sheets are designed chiefly to protect the health and safety of U.S. citizens abroad. With the 2000 technology challenge 108 days away, the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs said it wanted to give Americans enough time to plan year-end travel accordingly.

The Y2K glitch could prevent some computers from distinguishing 2000 from 1900 because of an old shortcut that recorded the year with two digits only. Unless fixed, this could wreak havoc on everything from air travel to health care to automatic teller machines.

In Russia, "Y2K disruptions are likely to occur in the key sectors of electrical power, heat, telecommunications, transportation, and financial and emergency services," the revised consular information sheet said.

Pakistan, although not heavily dependent on computers, was only "somewhat prepared" and there was a "significant risk" of disruption in key areas, including health care, banking and power supply, its Y2K update said.

Italy, said by U.S. officials to have complained after seeing an initial draft, was cited as one of the few western European nations that needed to step up its contingency plans.

"Italy will lower the risks of potential Y2K disruptions with greater progress in remediation and contingency planning, particularly in the fields of health care, telecommunications and, to a lesser extent, transportation," its Y2K update said.

The language on Italy appeared to reflect State Department efforts to avoid unduly angering an ally or damaging its tourism industry with a poor report card. The United States was also loathe to rattle investors, U.S. officials said privately.

"We explained to the governments that the purpose of our assessing their Y2K remediation efforts was to apprise the U.S. public of potential dangers to their safety," the department's citizen services director, Kevin Herbert, told a news briefing.

After reviewing feedback and looking again at any substantial improvements that might have been made, the State Department came up with new drafts and presented these to other governments a second time, Herbert said. The revised information may be accessed online at http://travel.state.gov.

The chairman of a special Senate panel on the Y2K problem, Utah Republican Robert Bennett, blasted the final product as full of "boilerplate" that "made it difficult to discern the difference in Y2K readiness between well-prepared and unprepared countries."

"The State Department report barely scratches the surface of serious Y2K problems facing many countries around the world," he said in reply to a query from Reuters.

"For example, one can discern little difference between China and Mexico, which are widely believed to be at opposite ends of the spectrum," Bennett added in an e-mail message.

The update on Mexico said it appeared to be prepared to deal with the Y2K problem, but "could experience localized Y2K problems in some services, such as the highly-automated communications sector."

Japan, which some experts had said was ill-prepared for Y2K, got a clean bill of health from the State Department, which cited a low risk of disruption.

Last week, Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who is vice chair of the Senate Y2K panel, told a luncheon that he was worried about Japan, along with Russia, China and Italy.

Asked whether Dodd was satisfied with the State Department's assessment of Japan, a spokeswoman, Unice Lieberman, said Japan had "turned a corner and was in much better shape than we'd originally thought."

"They probably still have more to do but they shouldn't be lumped in with China, Russia and Italy," she said.

Earlier in the day, the White House budget office reported that the U.S. government has completed 97 percent of Year 2000 fixes on its most important computer systems at a cost of $8.34 billion.

In its Y2K report on the United States, Britain's foreign office said a risk remained of "limited disruption to the water supply; to internal travel using small airports and to small health facilities."

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 14, 1999

Answers

Ray;

Don't you find it interesting that they are having problems in producing the "leper list" that most of us just KNOW is sitting there on some desk?? (State promised it last week, FAA can't seem to release theirs as promised.........)

I WONDER who it hurts, and I wonder how much it cost them to get it supressed??

Chuck, who is NOT a conspiratorialist, but Occam sometimes makes him think........;-(

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 14, 1999.

Japan gets a clean bill of health on its Y2K compliance?!? This says less about Japan, and far more about the near-total lack of truthfulness/knowledge of any spokesman who would speak aloud such a blatant lie. Japan is going Infomagic in 2000; don't be there when it happens.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), September 14, 1999.