With 10-and-a-half months to go before the date which many fear could cripple obsolete computers and electrical systems around the world, Italy's official body to deal with the problem has just met for the first time. In what some correspondents are calling the 'ostrich approach' to the Y2K problem, the Italian government did create a panel of unpaid experts, but gave it no support staff to carry out its recommendations.

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General admits it recently sent out by mistake hundreds of notices of fines for traffic infractions that will take place 100 years from now due to a Y2K problem. The letters threatened everything from suspension of your driver's licence to liens on your house to garnishment of your wages to court arrest if the people who were sent the letters did not pay the appropriate fines involved.

The Y2K problem could cause serious disruptions abroad, including breakdowns in nuclear reactors and strategic missile systems, midwinter power outages and disruptions in world trade and oil shipments, a CIA official warned today. Air Force Gen. John Gordon, deputy director of the CIA, emphasized at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that gaps in information make it hard to assess the scope of the damage in foreign countries, although it is evident that most countries, particularly Russia, are far behind the United States in preparing for the crisis.

Midwinter power outages, he said, could have ``major humanitarian consequences'' in countries such as Russia and Ukraine. "We currently do not see a danger of unauthorized or inadvertent launch of ballistic missiles from any country due to Y2K problems," Gordon said. But he said there could be serious local problems with missiles if temperature or humidity monitors malfunction, and that problems in early-warning systems could lead to incorrect information. The developing world faces the greatest threats of disruptions, Gordon said. China will probably experience failures in key sectors such as telecommunications, electric power and banking.

Among banks and S&Ls responding to a Weiss Y2K readiness survey mailed Dec. 30, 1998, a surprisingly large percentage -- 32% -- admit that they missed a critical Y2K deadline. These institutions report that they did not complete remediation and testing of internal mission-critical systems by Dec. 31, 1998. Furthermore, 20% do not anticipate completion until March. This implies a failure to comply with the federal requirement that ``testing of internal mission-critical systems should be substantially complete'' by Dec. 31, 1998. This finding directly contradicts recent assurances from banking regulators that only 4% of banking institutions have been rated ``unsatisfactory'' or ``needs improvement.''

To date, 909 banks and S&Ls have responded to the Weiss survey. Among these, only 620 (68%) stated that they had completed the required Y2K fixes on all internal mission-critical systems by Dec. 31, while 289 (32%) reported that they had missed the deadline. Among these, 184 institutions (20% of respondents) stated that they did not anticipate completing the fixes until after Feb. 28. Final results of the Weiss survey, with additional analysis, will be released in early March.

The Director of the American Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, has warned that Europe may face serious gas supply disruptions, if its largest supplier, Russia's Gazprom, does not deal in time with the potentially disruptive computer fault known as the Millenium Bug. The CIA director said Russia and Eastern Europe are among the least prepared in addressing the problem. Senior Russian officials have repeatedly warned that the country needs up to three-billion dollars to fix the so-called millenium bug.

Last week Salt Lake City rolled their clocks ahead on their water filtration plant to see what would happen when the date changed. They were confident that there would be no problem. When the date changed, the water filtration system (which uses an absolute number for year designation) read the following code:

year = ABS(CurrentYear - PreviousYear)

Normally, it would either get a zero (1999 - 1999 = 0) to show that it was within the same year OR it would get a one to show that the year had changed to a new year. It would then deal with the roll over to the new year and readjust itself. It would then go on to figure the month. All of this is done to determine a number of things, including how much chemical should be dumped into the water (Chlorine, floride, all those "good" poisons).

Because they were using the ABS (absolute number) function, the computer understood that the last time chlorine, floride and other chemicals had been put into the water was ABS(00-99) years ago. 0-99=-99. But the absolute number is 99 years.

Thus, the program figured it was a little behind. It didn't know what to do. It freaked out and attempted to dump 99 years worth of chemicals into the water system.

A "minor" Y2K inconvenience. . . . What would 99 years worth of floride do to your body?