http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=5885

Saturday, 20 November 1999 2:52 (GMT)

(UPI Focus)

Few heeding official Y2K warning

By ASHLEY BAKER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) - State Department officials say little has changed since a recommendation last month by government technology experts that all non-essential personnel at key embassies and consulates in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova leave before Jan. 1, 2000.

The October recommendation came after U.S. officials found government leaders in the four former Soviet republics were putting little or no effort into addressing potential electronic failures stemming from the inability of their computers to recognize dates involving the year 2000.

Embassy and consular officials have until Christmas to decide whether they or their families will stay.

A U.S. official said the State Department would be unable to provide estimates of how many people were staying until shortly before the holiday.

Asked whether department was making it compulsory for any personnel to leave Russia and the other republics, the U.S. official responded, "No, absolutely not."

U.S. concerns center on the potentially disastrous effects of possible computer failures in key infrastructure sectors of the former Soviet states. In September, Ken Baker, principal deputy assistant secretary of energy, testified before Congress that computer failures associated with the Year 2000 could undermine safety at 68 Soviet-era nuclear reactors - known as RBMKs - and leave millions of people throughout the former Soviet Union without power. According to Baker, nuclear power generated nearly 25 percent of electricity in the Siberia region. In Ukraine, the figure was nearly double - 47 percent, he said.

Baker said U.S. experts were not expecting a nuclear disaster. But he added, "If no safety upgrades were performed, the (likelihood) of a core meltdown accident at an RBMK reactor is approximately 100 times higher than at a typical U.S. nuclear power plant."

"U.S. officials attribute Russia's unwillingness to face potential computer problems to their desire to maintain an image of continued military superiority," Baker said at the September hearing.

"Some in the Russian bureaucracy view Y2K as a national security issue and are reluctant to reveal any information that could betray weakness or vulnerability," said John Beyrle, deputy to the special adviser to the secretary of state, at the September congressional hearing.

"This reticence has hundreds of years of tradition behind it but makes it more difficult for Russian interagency remedial work, and definitely more difficult for foreigners to assess the problem accurately," Beyrle said.

Officials from one key Russian ministry refused to meet with U.S. Embassy officials to discuss their year 2000 computer preparations because they did not want to "spread rumors," Beyrle said. Numerous government and non-government reports in recent months have singled out Russia's air traffic system as particularly vulnerable to Y2K computer problems.

In recent written congressional testimony, the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Association expressed "consternation" at a statement by Russia's chief air control officer, three-star Col. Gen. Anatoly Kornukov, saying Russia's air traffic control system had been in critical condition since the early 1990s, and that flight safety levels would continue to fall drastically until they were 80 percent below the level of the Western world.

Potential computer problems, however, are likely to remain near the bottom of the Russian worry list.

"Today, Russia is on the brink of internal unrest as a result of recent bombings in Moscow, its currency remains unstable, its government lacks credibility internally and internationally, and its banking system remains weak," said Richard Conn, chairman of the legal affairs committee of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, at the September hearing.

"In short, as serious as Y2K issues are, they simply are not perceived as sufficiently serious and immediate to warrant the attention that we in the West feel they deserve," Conn said.

Copyright 1999 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Tminus41&counting.down), November 20, 1999

Answers

A rational explanation for making Y2K preparations

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001R UO

Sincerely,
Stan Faryna

Got 14 days of preps? If not, get started now. Click here.

Click here and check out the TB2000 preparation forum.

-- Stan Faryna (faryna@groupmail.com), November 20, 1999.

And the denialists worldwide slide toward their own destruction ...

-- even warnings don't sway (herd@complacency.way), November 20, 1999.

The former Soviet Unions problems are extraordinary without taking Y2K into consideration. Corruption is standard. You can't do business without huge, multiple layers of bureaucracy to grease along the way. If you can make it through the government gauntlet and you're successful then its time to pay the mafia. The infrastructure is falling apart. Even new buildings look old after 10 years. The entire male population is drunk half the time. A good apartment is one that has uninterrupted electricity and hot water. Everything else is trashed and you're lucky to have light bulbs in the public corridors because they get ripped off. Why? They have a wealth of natural resources but it doesn't trickle down. It gets skimmed off at the top and stays there. Russia has us right where they want us. We have to keep sending them aid (which gets immediately siphoned off to a few bigwig Swiss accounts) OR they'll unleash a radioactive cloud OR their nuclear weapons will get in the wrong hands OR an environmental catastrophe will happen. Unfortunately the people are used to being stepped on and they have unlimited tolerance for governmental abuse.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), November 20, 1999.