Paul,
I now know that you are globally aware. Check out this from the Dow Jones Wire yesterday:
April 22, 1998
Unaware Asia Heading Toward Y2K Crisis, U.N. Agency Warns -----
Dow Jones Newswires
BANGKOK (AP)--Asian countries are generally unaware
and taking little action to avert a computer
meltdown in the year 2000 when the Y2K crisis hits,
a U.N. agency warned Wednesday.
The U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific, as part of its 54th Commission
Session ending Wednesday, said much of Asia is
muddling toward disaster.
'It's not a deadline that can be avoided,' said
Andrew J. Flatt, director of ESCAP's statistics
division. 'Yet apart from Australia and to a lesser
extent Japan, it's something that people are only
now waking up to.'
The Y2K crisis will strike in the Year 2000, when
the failure by the computer industry to account for
the millennium change will suddenly result in
software incapable of digesting the new dates and,
in worst-case scenarios, going haywire.
Some of the officials from the 41 countries
gathered at ESCAP over the past week raised the
problem in discussions on the social impact of
Asia's economic crisis.
Flatt said it gradually dawned on them that few of
their governments have gotten to grips with the
issue. Many appear to be hoping the U.S. and Europe
will come up with solutions that can be applied in
Asia.
That could be waiting too long, Flatt said. Top
government officials need to get on top of the
problem now, because sorting out the mess will take
time and money and cannot start at the last minute.
Fixing the bug in Asia could cost $500 million,
based on programmer hours and getting new computer
equipment, he said.
Those at greatest risk wouldn't be more developed
countries like Japan or Australia, or virtually
computer-less ones like Bhutan or Laos, but those
somewhere in between like Thailand. These are
countries that have rapidly computerized in the
past few years but wouldn't have the resources in
programmers - or money since the Asian economic
crisis - to stamp out Y2K problems.
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