Radio Havana Cuba's Science and Technology Program:
BREAKTHROUGHFor broadcast Sunday, December 5 and Thursday, December 9 1999
Written and narrated by Arnaldo "Arnie" Coro, RHC's Science Editor
Sound: BK theme music, fades slowly to:
Coro: Hello, welcome to another edition of Breakthrough, Radio Havana Cuba's Science, Technology and the Environment update. I am Arnaldo, Arnie Coro, the station's science editor and today I'll tell you about Cuba's national program to deal with the Y2K issue...
In a recent Cuban TV special broadcast Raul Taladrid, the host of the show titled " Into the Unknown, " presented a documentary about the Y2K issue. As Taladrid usually does, he invited to the studio an outstanding personality in the area with which the show is dealing. Doctor Melchor Gil, the national coordinator for the Y2K issue, was the guest, and the dialogue between the TV show host and Dr. Gil was really interesting. Those of us watching the show learned that the Cuban civil aviation industry was the first organization in the whole nation to declare itself as absolutely Y2K compliant, but that was not enough, as Dr. Gil said, and they had to be certified by the national board dealing with the millennium bug problem. That was not enough for the Cuban civil aviation institute, either; well, of course they accepted the certification, but also invited the International Civil Aviation Organization's Y2K panel to visit Cuba and review all the work done to make all the Cuban civil aviation industry Y2K compliant, something that the Cuban organization passed with flying colors.
YES, Dr Melchor Gil said, the Y2K issue will cost Cuba a lot of money, and we have identified possible problems in critical areas like public health, telecommunications, electricity generation, etc. But, we started really early, as compared with other nations, and for more than three years, Dr. Gil said, the Cuban panel on the Y2K problem has worked hard to minimize the effects that are expected to occur after 31 December, 1999 at midnight local time.
In what all TV viewers took as a very credible and honest presentation, Dr. Gil, questioned by TV host Raul Taladrid, answered that of the more than seventy thousand computers now in operation in Cuba, some are expected to have problems, as well as some specific equipment that uses CPUs or microprocessors... but, as Dr. Gil clearly stated, the most critical areas of the national economy and those involving public safety were dealt with at the highest priority, and that is why we can be assured that they are Y2K compliant right now. Nevertheless Dr. Gil, an engineer and computer sciences expert with a clear vision of today's world, insisted that all the real-life things will happen during the first week of year 2000 and then, and only then, we will really know all about Y2K in relation to all the areas in which computers and microprocessors which are date-dependent are used...
SOUND: BK theme, fades down to:
CORO: And this, amigos, was Breakthrough for today, how Cuba is dealing with the Y2K issue and how the Cuban population was informed about preparations for the upcoming millenniumm event!!! From Havana I am Arnaldo, Arnie Coro, RHC's Science Editor, now wishing you excellent reception of our next show.
For more information, via Air Mail:
"Breakthrough"
Radio Havana Cuba
PO Box 6240, Havana, CUBA 10600
Via e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
To Arnie Coro's Dxers Unlimited
Back to RHC Homepage