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To: John Mansfield who wrote (24091)	12/10/1998 4:33:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116972

'U.S. regulators have heightened their scrutiny into the information that companies provide to investors about progress in tackling so-called millennium computer bug problems, a top official said yesterday. The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to make sure that public companies--ranging from public utilities to financial services firms--are keeping investors properly informed of such troubles that could impact the price of a stock or investment. "We are going to turn up the screws on this," Brian Lane, the agency's director of corporation finance, warned some 1,300 accountants attending a conference here.' ______ I am very curious when we will see several stock downgraded (on a frequent basis) of F500 companies due to Y2k / SEC forced publications on Y2k remediation status... not too far off from now, 1-3 months at most. John news.com

To: John Mansfield who wrote (24091)	12/10/1998 8:19:00 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116972

WOW, How, Is it possible for me to short a mutual fund? I could buy an entire island - maybe Hawaii.... rh

To: John Mansfield who wrote (24091)	12/11/1998 3:12:00 PM
From: Alex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116972

Swat teams could be the UN's answer to coping with Y2K Bug By BRIAN HALE The United Nations is taking the lead role in trying to minimise cross-border problems from the Y2K problem with plans for a world control centre and global ''Swat'' teams to combat the millennium Bug. More than 200 delegates from 120 countries were meeting at the UN in New York today in the first international conference of national Y2K program heads from around the globe as concern grows about the likelihood of problems spreading from non-compliant countries after midnight at the end of next year. The planned Swat teams could have their hands full in countries that have not seriously tackled the problems faced by computers and computer chips when the first two digits of the year switch from 19 to 20 according to Pakistan's UN ambassador, Mr Ahmad Kamal, who organised the conference, but he stressed yesterday that ''even those countries that have done the compliance work are at risk from those who haven't because Y2K, like a virus, can jump backwards and forwards between countries''. ''There is a trillion dollars a day of funds moving around the world. The world has shrunk,'' said Mr Kamal, ''and we know there is a problem with the supply line. Your factory might be compliant but your local water company might not be, so your factory will stop.'' At a press conference before the UN meeting, 10 delegates from around the world offered assurances that the Y2K problem would not fill the skies with accidentally-launched nuclear missiles but they were less sanguine about many other aspects of life at the beginning of the year 2000. ''In all countries, aircraft control, telecommunications, financial services and government services are at particular risk and economists worry that business setbacks may lead to destabilisation of international financial markets - which have not yet recovered from the 1997-98 conference,'' said Mr Kamal. Mr John Koskinen, the head of America's Y2K program, suggested that ''airlines will likely refuse to fly to countries that cannot demonstrate the year 2000 readiness of air traffic control networks''. ''Localised telecommunications failures could mean callers in one country may not be able to get through to another and some shippers have already announced that they may stay at sea on 1 January, 2000 rather than risk getting stuck at non-Y2K compliant ports,'' he said. It was ''critical'', Mr Koskinen said, for countries to work together to address cross-border Y2K failures ''which could be particularly hazardous to international trade and commerce. The greatest risk of these failures exists in areas with international networks such as transportation and telecommunications,'' said the US Y2K program chief. The UN meeting originally was intended to be a small gathering of that body's working party on the Millennium Bug but it turned into a global meeting with Mr Kamal ''astonished'' at the size and scope of the response. Even the UN's Secretary-General planned to attend to show the importance of meeting. ''International conferences usually take about two years to set-up; this one took two months,'' said Mr Kamal. ''That is unprecedented in the history of the United Nations and it is largely due to the input from Mr Koskinen and his staff''. Mr Kamal rejected suggestions that the UN's recent speed did not compensate for earlier tardiness and insisted that ''Y2K is a problem that we are discovering the magnitude and complexity of as we go along''. ''We haven't been sitting back for years waiting for the problem to hit us. There is not a single day that we do not discover something that we did not know yesterday,'' he said. But he admitted that the UN had no real idea how compliant the world was for Y2K nor how serious the resultant problems would prove to be. ''I do not have a clue whether it is 5 per cent compliant or 50 per cent or 95 per cent and my suspicion is that anyone who says they know, doesn't know. We do know that there is a problem of inter-connectivity, that you may be compliant but I might not,'' he said. ''What will be the size of the crisis ... I do not know. It may range from irritation to disruption.'' Better indications of the size of the problem might emerge from the UN meeting which was being held behind closed doors ''because we felt some of the laggard countries might hesitate to speak frankly if the press was allowed in ... It's in everyone's interest to have a very frank discussion,'' said Mr Kamal. The agenda for today's meeting ranges from compliance and monitoring to contingency planning and crisis management and Mr Kamal said it was clear that ''there will be areas that will not be compliant on 1 January 2000, so we had better start planning now for how we are going to set up ''Swat'' teams. It also is still to be decided whether the Swat teams should be national, regional or international and where the UN will put its global Y2K police/fire station. Mr Koskinen described the session as ''truly an international meeting that reflects the depth of the problem and also the growing commitment to dealing with it''. ''There is a global village and a global economy that increasingly relies upon information technology for the exchange of data as well as transactions. All of us are dependent upon each other and the strengths or weaknesses of internal systems will affect all of us as we go forward,'' he said. ''The goal we've all agreed upon is not just to provide information although that's critical and not just to exchange information about what the status is in important sectors that affect all of us like telecommunications, finance and transportation but to come to agreement about how we will organise ourselves on a regional and international level to deal with this problem.'' ''There is no easy answer to that question; we hope that the UN which has demonstrated leadership through Ambassador Kamal and his working group will play a significant role as we go forward but with the 386 days left there is not time for the normal diplomatic niceties. We need to get work done and we need to get it done properly,'' Mr Koskinen said. theage.com.au