Nuclear threat rings Brussles alarm bells. Europe should create emergency plans for millennium bug-related nuclear disasters in Russia and eastern Europe, a European parliamentary committee is urging......

-- Eastern (Europe@theready.com), March 12, 1999

Answers

Hmmm...wonder if it has anything to do with this story from yesterday:

Time is running out for Russia by Nadia Damon

Russia has yet to start work on making its computer systems millennium compliant, despite having less than 10 months left until the final deadline.

According to David Green, vice president for Europe of Relativity Technologies, Russian computer systems will not be as straightforward to work on as US and other European systems.

"The nature of the problem is different to that in the West," he comments. "In Russia, they have a mass of archaic computer languages and platforms that cannot be made year 2000 ready."

Green says the old systems are a legacy of the Soviet government, and cannot be altered in time - because some of the technology platforms may not be upgraded.

"Russia has a major problem on its hands. At the moment it doesn't understand the scale of the problem."

Last month, US Air Force General, John Gordon, deputy director of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), told the US Senate that Russia appears particularly vulnerable, and raised concerns about the safety of Russia's missiles, nuclear plants and gas pipelines - one of which supplies Germany.

http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/cwarchive/Xtra/19990311/cwcontainer.as p?name=C6.html

-- a (a@a.a), March 12, 1999.