FROM ITALIAN NEWS BRIEFS IN THE PANORAMA NEWSPAPER (OCT. 29, 1999)

A Y2K crisis center opened last week outside Rome in the offices of the Sismi intelligence service. The center will manage an emergency plan that will manage an emergency plan that will guarantee essential services like transportation, electricity and telecommunications in the cse of a breakdown of a central computer network. The Y2K committee was set up early this year in Italy and the initial studies reported disastrously low levels of preparation in sectors like the health service, especially in Southern Italy. The crisis center will have links with local branches in each province, with the prime minister's office and utility service providers.

*****************************

Let's see, they STARTED early this year.....okay, they admitted then they were NOT prepared...I believe the word disastrous was used.... Southern Italy will be the worst hit.....I believe that I have been borne out here.....Help somebody, I LIVE here!!!!!

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), November 03, 1999

Answers

no kidding?

you're in Italy?

ciao, baby!

-- eubie (eubie@mamamia.com), November 03, 1999.

Delta Airlines 1 800 241 4141

TWA 1 800 221 2000

Good Luck.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), November 03, 1999.

Hey, don't worry - be happy! Leading Italians were looking forward to Y2K, back in May, as the possible genesis of one big national party bash, as you'll see at the end of THE TIMES story below

Of course, you always get the party-pooper...!

The story leads with:

"Italy is going to crash, and we are going to be crucified," Romano Oneda, the education expert on Italy's Year 2000 Committee, said.

THE TIMES, London May 14 1999

Tardy Nation Invites Chaos At Millennium Celebrations

BY RICHARD OWEN

OFFICIALS given the task of ridding Italy of the millennium bug issued a warning yesterday that, with just over seven months to the deadline, a promised #2 million budget had yet to be approved by parliament - and they still had no powers to force companies and government departments to comply.

"Italy is going to crash, and we are going to be crucified," Romano Oneda, the education expert on Italy's Year 2000 Committee, said. "We are supposed to make things go so smoothly that nobody would realise there was ever a problem. Instead we will be the scapegoats. We have only consultative powers, and no one is listening to us."

Roberto Di Martino, a computer software expert on the committee, said "even now no executive wants to tell his company they have to spend both time and money on this". Augusto Leggio, whose task is to persuade the transport and telecommunications sectors to face up to Y2K, said the problem was "so vast there is no point in getting hysterical". He said the Interior Ministry, which controls police and immigration services, hoped to guarantee most essential services by the end of this year, but would not be fully compliant until July 2000. "I don't think they have quite grasped what this is all about," one official said.

Planners in Italy and Vatican City are only now beginning to realise that they face a nightmare. The tourist industry is losing millions of pounds because of the Balkans war, and it is feared that many planning to see in the Holy Year in the Eternal City will go elsewhere because of Y2K.

"Imagine the dawn of the new millennium", said Il Messaggero, the Rome daily. "Twenty six million people have come to the Eternal City. But traffic lights and automatic banking machines are out of order, the airport is in chaos, food and water are running out. There could be panic and disorder." The Government has, belatedly, begun broadcasting radio advertisements explaining that the bug affects any system storing the year as two digits rather than four.

According to one survey, only 2 per cent of Italians have heard of the problem. The Y2K campaign has been put in the hands of Professor Ernesto Bettinelli, an energetic former junior Minister for Public Administration. But he continues to teach constitutional law at Padua University while running the committee, which started work in February. It has been allotted Ministry of Tourism rooms, with a staff of six, three telephones and one secretary, and draws on the unpaid services of 22 experts in such fields as banking, traffic control and food distribution.

Professor Bettinelli said: "It is rather like Italy's experience with qualifying for the euro. Italy often starts late and then makes up for lost time with bursts of acceleration." Others are less sanguine. "If you have to choose a day to be ill, fly on an airplane or get in a lift, avoid Italy on December 31," said La Repubblica. General Natalino Lecca, the professor's right-hand man, admits the country was a "relatively late starter" in computerising offices and services. "But this could be an advantage; it means we have fewer older-generation computers infected by the bug." He also sees an advantage in Italy's family-owned food stores, which mostly "still do everything by hand".

But Valeria Severini, an economist, said the dangers were being underestimated. "Fiat's computer system went down for six days recently, even though they had spent #50 million on a debugging programme." She predicted a big fall in industrial production next year.

The bureaucracy is grinding to a halt, social security and pension payments being made by hand. Many hospitals have taken little or no action. But some point out that Italian life is already "organised chaos", so if urban support systems collapse, no one will notice. Said Beppe Severgnini of Corriere della Sera: "We have a gift for transforming any crisis into one big party." - o O o -

More jiucy quotes at:

http://www.inforamp.net/~jwhitley/Y2KQUOTE.HTM

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 03, 1999.

There's still time to pick up a couple hundred pounds of dried pasta and a few dozen jugs of decent wine...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), November 04, 1999.

Mad Monk, quit peeking in my windows!

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), November 05, 1999.