HOW OTHERS ARE PREPARING

SOME Americans had their first brush with what Y2K could bring last December. On 8.12.98 a massive power outage hit San Francisco. Shortly after 8 a.m. 372 000 customers lost power. For a few hours life stopped in the city. Stop lights and traffic signals ceased to function. Lifts went into hibernation. ATM's wouldn't dispense cash. Trains stopped. Shops, plunged into darkness, did not open. Hospital procedures were interrupted. Mayor Willie Brown declared a city wide state of emergency. "The cause of the outage was simple human error which then triggered a complex series of events," said a Pacific Gas & Electricity Co spokesman. Y2K will almost certainly release a whole cluster of very complicated human errors.

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SINCE early 1998 the CIA has undertaken regular assessments of the world's computer compliance to Year 2000. The news is not good. Even today, says the agency, global elites seem to have little comprehension of the problem. It is the opinion of the CIA that a majority of governments "have hopelessly underestimated the impact of the Millennium Bug … 60% to 70% of governments are still not paying sufficient attention to the problem." Least prepared, according to the CIA, are Russia, China, many cities in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. South Africa is listed as "the best prepared in Africa" but it's compliance rating is still reflected as "bad." "Likely breakdowns include Chinese power systems, Mid East shipping (presumably oil tankers), Russia's missile early warning systems and the Russian gas pipeline." The Wall Street Journal reports that the CIA predicts "civil unrest in some countries, after food supplies and utilities suffer long outages."

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ACCORDING to estimates by the Gartner Group, the US consulting company, at least two-thirds of compa-nies in China, Russia, Indonesia, Laos, Pakistan, Philip-pines, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Cambodia will suffer major "mission-critical failures because of Y2K." Half of Japan's companies are also expected to experience failures. "Asia's economic crisis complicates things, limiting spending on the search for solutions." According to Reuters, only six of Africa's 48 states south of the Sahara have national government-backed programmes to tackle Y2K. South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Namibia, "with SA leading the way."

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FOR the first time since 1940 the 460 000 strong US National Guard will be on full mobilisation on December 31. In May the National Guard will conduct a nationwide exercise using a high-frequency radio system to ensure it has a means of communication should the telephone service go down. The National Guard believes that America's power grid is likely to collapse on New Year's Eve and is making contingency plans for the Guards to "calm" possible civil disorder, provide emergency communication and discourage looting. Some states are preparing to open all their armouries on December 31. AP reports that many US cities are preparing for Y2K by buying night vision scopes, plus flashlights that can be attached to rifles and shotguns, gas masks and helmet shields for police.

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IN Britain all police leave has been cancelled for the turn of the Millennium. The Territorial Army has been put on standby. Tony Blair appealed for 20 000 computer technicians to come to the aid of the country. As at mid-February 26 techies had been found. UK Home Secretary Jack Straw says that the nation's police force will face "unprecedented pressure" in the Millennium chaos. "In fact, 1 450 officers of the national crime squad have been told they must all be on duty as 2000 arrives, in anticipation of failing alarm systems and the possible collapse of public utilities."

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THE Canadian Government will have 20 000 troops on standby on New Year's Eve "to preserve order in the event of major disruptions and dislocations."

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IN Israel, the army's computerisation division is concerned that the date turnover could present massive problems for military and civilian computers. According to The Jerusalem Post, the Israeli Defence Force's computer division has identified 21 dates on which they suspect there could be serious malfunctions. The main concern is that public utilities will fail. Also, that the Global Positioning Satellite, used by the Army as a key strategic and navigational tool, could fail. One date is September 9, 1999 (9.9.99) a number some computers recognise as infinity. When they entered the date, Feb-ruary 29, 2000, the computer said it didn't exist. The entire army is under orders to manually change the dates on all computers after December 31.

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