Foreign Office embraces email

The Foreign Office is to phase out telegrams by the year 2000 in favour of an email system. The ministry is spending #69 million on upgrading its communications systems over the next three years, and putting a secure email system in place. Last year, the ministry received 2.3 million telegrams, some taking around 24 hours to arrive from foreign embassies. The target delivery time will now be five hours, according to the department. The move to email was initially delayed by fears about security.