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IP: Fears of Y2K looting spurs UK to ready secret disaster unit
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 04:31:40 -0500
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> [You can find the story in the "UK News" section of http://www.independent.co.uk/ --Declan] === From: "Alan Docherty" <freenet () globalnet co uk> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com> Subject: Disaster unit for Y2K in UK Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 12:52:49 -0000
From today's Independent
Disaster alert for 2000 bug By Marie Woolf, Political Correspondent A secret Cabinet disaster unit, only activated in times of dire civil emergencies such as nuclear leaks, hostage situations or foreign invasion, is to be mobilised on 31 December 1999 to cope with the fall-out from the millennium bug. The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, also will be put on alert to co-ordinate a strategy to cope with chaos on Britain's roads, airports and hospitals. The Government fears that the ordinary emergency services will be unable to deal with the mayhem caused by the possible national shutdown of lifts, air traffic control systems and hospital equipment. It plans to put the Civil Contingency Unit, run by a secretive cabinet group known as Cobra, on alert to deal with the situation. The unit, which has the power to assemble the heads of the Army, Navy, Royal Air Force, security services and SAS - for emergency strategy meetings - was last mobilised in 1994 during a training exercise to prepare for a possible nuclear attack by terrorists. [...] http://www.independent.co.uk/ _____________________________________________________________________ David Farber The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems University of Pennsylvania Home Page: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber
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- IP: Fears of Y2K looting spurs UK to ready secret disaster unit Dave Farber (Nov 10)