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Wednesday December 15, 5:48 pm Eastern Time

Argentines far from angst-ridden over Y2K bug

By Gilbert Le Gras

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Y2K fever may be in full pitch in the Northern Hemisphere but Argentine psychoanalysts say their patients have other things to worry about.

``I haven't noted very much concern over Y2K. I think people are treating it with a certain amount of frivolity more than as a major event or as something that's raising their anxiety,'' said Dr. Leonardo Wender, head of the Psychoanalysis Association of Buenos Aires, from his office in the city's Palermo district dubbed ``Freud Village'' for its concentration of therapists.

Year 2000, or Y2K, worries stem from past programming in computer software that records years by the last two digits, so that when 2000 rolls around the computers may stop calculating completely or make mistakes thinking it is 1900.

``It's not the end of the world,'' Wender said.

He conceded Argentines may be better prepared psychologically than Western European or North Americans because they are accustomed to break downs and power outages.

Tens of thousands of Argentines in February spent more than a week without power and many without water after a fire at a power substation owned by electrical distributor Edesur . The fire left an estimated half a million people without electricity.

Argentina overhauled its information technology in the 1990s from a relatively undeveloped basis, buying computer systems and networks after the existence of the Year 2000 problem was already widely known.

Some experts believe most of the equipment installed was designed to be millennium compliant.

``Edesur has undertaken all necessary measures to ensure its systems will operate normally at the change of millennium,'' Edesur spokesman Daniel Martini said.

``Still, we have technicians and other additional staff on call to respond quickly and efficiently to whatever unforeseen event that may occur,'' Martini added.

The energy sector in Argentina is largely privatized and most major companies are prepared to meet the Y2K problem having reprogrammed computers and invested in new equipment.

Argentina's only power transmission company handling 500-kilovolt power lines, Transener , ``has done every necessary check with absolute success and trusts everything will work normally,'' spokesman Oscar Dores said.

A U.S. State Department travel advisory on Tuesday said Argentina faced a ``low risk of potential disruptions'' in its banking and finance sectors, telecommunications and electric power utilities.

It cautioned there may be disruptions in hospital services at the provincial and municipal levels where Y2K preparedness is not as advanced.

Aguas Argentinas, which operates water supply and sewage systems, ``has been working for two years to face any difficulty due to the change of millennium,'' spokesman Fabian Falco said.

Argentina's telecoms firms, Telefonica de Argentina (NYSE:TAR - news) and Telecom Argentina (NYSE:TEO - news), have been audited by independent consultants to qualify for international loans so they are Y2K compliant.

In case of a power failure, the phone companies have generators.

The transportation sector is also considered a low risk. Argentina's railways are not computerized so signaling and barriers operate manually or by electro-mechanical systems.

The Argentine Air Force regulates both military and civilian flights and has implemented a federally mandated control plan.

The Air Force has installed a contingency plan along the guidelines of the International Civil Aviation Organization where flight frequencies will be widened and put under manual control to avoid any computer-related risk.

Argentina's Central Bank on Dec. 5 said a second and final round of tests for Y2K glitches in the nation's banking sector found key systems still ready to handle the date change.

-- (in@the.news), December 16, 1999

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Don't forget, due to Coriolis acceleration, toilets flush backwards in the Southern Hemisphere. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

-- (Evita@tango..fandango), December 16, 1999.