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Philippines considering DST starting June; DST under Aquino? in space?
by Paul Eggert April 26, 2006

April 26, 2006

Tomorrow's _Manila Standard_ reports that the Philippines Department of Trade and Industry is considering adopting DST this June when the rainy season begins. See <http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=politics02_april26_2006>. That article also reports that DST was in effect "for a month during the tenure of then President Corazon Aquino to conserve energy. Under the scheme, the official work-time in government and private sector is adjusted an hour or two earlier to fully take advantage of daylight and reduce energy use." We have no record of this, but from the article's wording it's not clear whether official time was moved, or whether state and private employers were simply asked to change work schedules. ----- The Kyodo news service reported today that Islamic scholars and scientists are wrestling with the problem of what time zone to use in outer space. Malaysia is preparing for its first astronaut next year (part of a scientific mission on the International Space Station), and 3 of 4 candidates are Muslims. Muslims must pray five times daily. But as Zainal Abidin Abdul Rashid of Malaysia National University pointed out at the seminar, the space station circles the Earth 16 times in 24 hours, with a sunrise and sunset occurring about every 90 minutes. "Does this mean we have to perform 80 prayers a day," he said in his seminar paper. He proposed that Earth time, especially the time zone in Mecca, be used as the reference point to determine the prayer schedule. <http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-malaysia-mulls-prayer-guidelines-muslim-astr…> It looks like their computers will use TZ='Asia/Riyadh' while in space, unless they get tricky and want to use the more-traditional solar time.

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Fwd: FW: Timezone file asia
by K Sethu April 26, 2006

April 26, 2006

On request of Paul Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu> I am forwarding to tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov herewith my email to Paul Eggert and Nimal Ratnayake. Furhter Nimal's first message, Paul's response to it and Paul's response to my following message are also copied in that order for reference below the following forwarded message K. Sethu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: K Sethu <skhome(a)gmail.com> Date: Apr 25, 2006 11:12 AM Subject: Re: FW: Timezone file asia To: Paul Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu> Cc: Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr(a)pdn.ac.lk> On 4/25/06, Paul Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu> wrote: > Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr(a)pdn.ac.lk> writes: > > > Actually although the time offset is the same as IST, we call it Sri > > Lanka Time. > > I am tryinng to get some authoritative info from organizations like > > the Meteorological > > Department, Sri Lanka Standards Institute or ICT Agency of the government. > > Thanks. I'm also interested as to when this name came into common use. > > (Presumably it was not called "Sri Lanka Time" back in 1920. :-) > I think the abbreviation LKT originated from the world of computers at the time of or subsequent to the time zone changes by SL Government twice in 1996 and probably SL Government or its standardization /ict agencies never decalred an abbreviation as national standard. I recollect before the recent change the government annoucemments mentioning it as simply changing Sri Lanka Standard Time or Sri Lanka Time and no mention was made about the abbreviation. If we look at Sri Lanka Department of Government's "Official News Website of Sri Lanka" - for current page at http://www.news.lk/ we can see that they use SLT as abbreviation in time stamp at the beginning of each news item - for example: Tuesday 25-04-2006 SLT 09:30 (+05:30 GMT). For an example before the recent change, look at: http://www.news.lk/news_2006_04_072.htm - this has the news item on cabinet decision for changing of time and the time stamp then was Friday 07-04-2006 SLT 06:30 (+06:00 GMT). So question arises whether SLT was at any time adopted as standard abbreviation by the government. Within Sri Lanka I think LKT is well known among computer users and adminsitrators. In my opinion SLT may not be a good choice because the nation's largest telcom / internet operator Sri Lanka Telcom is well known by that abbreviation - simply as SLT (there IP domains are slt.lk and sltnet.lk). But if indeed our government has adopted SLT as standard abbreviation (that we have not known so far) then it is better that it be used for all computers. Hope Nimal gets more authoratative information in his investigations ~Sethu ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previous messages> From: *Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr(a)pdn.ac.lk>*Mailed-By: *pdn.ac.lk*To: *Paul > Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu>* > Cc: *K Sethu <skhome(a)gmail.com>* > Date: *Apr 24, 2006 9:44 PM* > Subject: *Re: FW: Timezone file asia* > > Hi, > > >It was "IST" from 1906 (when Colombo switched from Moratuwa Mean Time > >to India time) through 1996 (when Colombo switched away from India > >time), so I thought, it more consistent to revert back to the old > >abbreviation. > > > >But perhaps this isn't correct. What do English-speaking people > >typically say when they want to talk about the time zone used in > >Colombo nowadays? If they say "Sri Lanka time" then LKT would be more > >appropriate. > > > >One possibility is that we wait for a bit for the dust to settle down > >and then see what people actually say in practice. > > > > > > > Actually although the time offset is the same as IST, we call it Sri > Lanka Time. > I am tryinng to get some authoritative info from organizations like the > Meteorological > Department, Sri Lanka Standards Institute or ICT Agency of the government. > > >While we're on the subject of Sri Lanka time, Peter Apps and Ranga > >Sirilal reported on April 12 that the Tamil Tigers "never accepted the > >original 1996 time change and simply kept their clocks set five and a > >half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in line with neighbor > >India." See > >< > http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2… > >. > >They also report that Buddhist temples and astrologers' offices stuck > >with India time, but that's of less importance to us, since we focus > >on civil time. > > > >As luck would have it, though, people who live in regions under Tamil > >control (or who live in Buddhist temples etc.) can simply use > >TZ='Asia/Calcutta', as that zone has been correct for these regions > >since our cutoff date of 1970. However, I suppose I should add a > >comment to this effect in the Sri Lanka part of the database. > > > > > > > Yes. I think that would be appropriate. > > Nimal Ratnayake -------------------------------------------------------------------- > From: *Paul Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu>*Mailed-By: *cs.ucla.edu*To: *Nimal > Ratnayake <nimalr(a)pdn.ac.lk>* > Cc: *K Sethu <skhome(a)gmail.com>* > Date: *Apr 25, 2006 1:12 AM* > Subject: *Re: FW: Timezone file asia* > > Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr(a)pdn.ac.lk> writes: > > > Actually although the time offset is the same as IST, we call it Sri > > Lanka Time. > > I am tryinng to get some authoritative info from organizations like > > the Meteorological > > Department, Sri Lanka Standards Institute or ICT Agency of the > government. > > Thanks. I'm also interested as to when this name came into common use. > > (Presumably it was not called "Sri Lanka Time" back in 1920. :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- > From: *Paul Eggert <eggert(a)cs.ucla.edu>*Mailed-By: *cs.ucla.edu*To: *K > Sethu <skhome(a)gmail.com>* > Cc: *Nimal Ratnayake <nimalr(a)pdn.ac.lk>* > Date: *Apr 25, 2006 5:40 PM* > Subject: *Re: FW: Timezone file asia* > > "K Sethu" <skhome(a)gmail.com> writes: > > > Within Sri Lanka I think LKT is well known among computer users and > > adminsitrators. In my opinion SLT may not be a good choice because the > > nation's largest telcom / internet operator Sri Lanka Telcom is well > > known by that abbreviation - simply as SLT (there IP domains are > > slt.lk and sltnet.lk). > > > > But if indeed our government has adopted SLT as standard abbreviation > > (that we have not known so far) then it is better that it be used for > > all computers. > > Thanks for your discussion; it has convinced me to use either LKT or > SLT in the next update. Could you please send a copy of your email > to <tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov>? Thanks. > > > Hope Nimal gets more authoratative information in his > > investigations > > Yes, I'd also like to know about SLT versus LKT. > > Thanks.

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America/Halifax & America/Yellowknife (2007)
by Chris Walton April 26, 2006

April 26, 2006

Nova Scotia and Northwest Territories have fallen in line with the rest of the Canada. Daylight saving time will be extended by four weeks starting in 2007. Affected zones are: Nova Scotia: America/Halifax America/Glace_Bay North West Territories: America/Yellowknife America/Inuvik We don't need to make any rule changes to TZDATA. All four of the affected zones use the "Canada" rule which has already been updated. Here is a news release which was issued today by the Nova Scotia government: http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20060425004 I could not find any reference to the change on the Northwest Territories government web site; the only reference I have is a news story posted on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) web site on April 5: http://www.cbc.ca/north/story/nor-nwt-time-change.html I think we are still waiting to hear from the governments of Newfoundland, Yukon, and Nunavut. -chris

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Mandan status
by Jesper Norgaard Welen April 25, 2006

April 25, 2006

In the northamerica file I found the following: # Morton County, ND, switched from mountain to central time on # 2003-10-26, except for the area around Mandan. After reading it, I interpreted to be "except for the area around Mandan, which is still on mountain time". After I saw the other web links, I came to the conclusion that it really meant "except for the area around Mandan, which was already on central time". Either way, I think it would be useful to have an explicit formulation that leaves no room for doubt. Regards, - Jesper Jesper Nørgaard Welen Email: jnorgard(a)Prodigy.Net.mx Project Leader (Líder de Proyecto) Software CIMMYT - Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz El Batán Texcoco, Edo. de México CP 56130 MEXICO Tel.: +52 (55) 58-04-20-04 ext. 1374 Fax: +52 (55) 58-04-75-58 Tel. Casa: 53-10-05-95 ó 53-10-97-78 Download the free program World Time Explorer, I made: http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/index.html

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Guatemala DST?
by Oscar van Vlijmen April 24, 2006

April 24, 2006

Some sources say Guatemala will observe DST this year. For instance Steffen Thorsen: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=94 DST starts on Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 12:00 Midnight local standard time DST ends on Sunday, October 1, 2006 at 12:00 Midnight local daylight time TZ database still has no DST since 1991. What is the truth?

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Re: When is midnight? Nomenclature question (was Re: Guatemala DST?)
by kennykb＠crd.ge.com April 24, 2006

April 24, 2006

benc(a)hawaga.org.uk said: > shifting the topic slightly, I've noticed that FM Osaka lists their > programme times sometimes as times even later than 2400 (which I > intuitively but perhaps incorrectly interpret as meaning tomorrow) It's common practice in the broadcasting industry to use "midnight Tuesday night", "1 am Tuesday night", and so on. In the US, the standard (according to the company that does the Nielsen Ratings) is to change the date at 04:59:59 local time; prior to that, it's "Tuesday late night", after that, it's "Wednesday morning". It's rather a headache for the engineers that the marketeers think that way - particularly on the nights when Daylight Saving Time goes in or out of effect. I've seen that done by simply ignoring the change when it happens (at 0200 in the US), and then adjusting the schedule at "end of broadcast day" at 0500. -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin KENNY GE Corporate Research & Development kennykb(a)crd.ge.com P. O. Box 8, Bldg. K-1, Rm. 5B36A Schenectady, New York 12301-0008 USA

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RE: When is midnight? Nomenclature question
by Andy Lipscomb April 24, 2006

April 24, 2006

I would interpret this as meaning 00:00 on Sunday, not because the statement has that meaning unambiguously, but because the alternative interpretation (24:00 on Sunday) would start/end DST during the night prior to a workday, something that's generally avoided. -----Original Message----- In the original post which prompted me start this string of discussion, Oscar van Vlijmen quotes: > DST starts on Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 12:00 Midnight local standard > time DST ends on Sunday, October 1, 2006 at 12:00 Midnight local > daylight time To me, this is ambiguous. I cannot tell whether those references to midnight mean the midnight which occurs before 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, or the midnight which occurs after 11:59 p.m. on Sunday.

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recent time zone news: Indiana, New Zealand, Microsoft, Google, etc.
by Paul Eggert April 22, 2006

April 22, 2006

Microsoft said that its software couldn't handle Indiana's recent time zone change, but that this was Indiana's problem, not Microsoft's. "Outlook continues to function properly. It is the unusual distribution of time zones throughout the state, along with the adoption of daylight-saving time, which is causing inaccurate times on some PCs," Microsoft said. <http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-dont-sweat-time-change-electronics-/2006/03/…> In the end, Martin and Pulaski Counties, Indiana, decided not to rebel against the US federal decision to move them into the central time zone. Alas, most of the web pages reporting this have already vanished, but you can still see remnants of this in Google News indexes, and here's a still-remaining article that confirms it for Martin county <http://www.tmnews.com/articles/2006/03/23/sections/news/news21.txt>. This will require changes to the commentary of the tz database, and to the description in zone.tab, but not to the data itself. The Nelson city council will approach the New Zealand Internal Affairs Minister to extend daylight saving by a week in spring and two weeks in autumn.<http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200604071103/10359c51> Google Analytics's time zone chooser claims that Jerusalem is part of ... Ireland. Whew! <http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3276> Here are some items that might be suitable for tz-art.htm: I recently got around to reading Umberto Eco's 1994 novel, The Island of the Day Before (L'isola del giorno prima), which is the story of a 17th century Italian nobleman trapped near an island on the International Date Line. Time and time zones play an integral part in the novel. <http://www.umbertoeco.com/id-52/The%20Island%20of%20the%20Day%20Before%20(1…> David Jebb has recently published a novel "The Thirteenth Time Zone" about. It's fiction, but it's based on his experiences and travels. <http://www.thethirteenthtimezone.com/>

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Re: Some modifications of China related timezone info.
by Paul Eggert April 21, 2006

April 21, 2006

"Zhe Su" <james.su(a)gmail.com> writes: > Unfortunately, most front ends (at least on GNU/Linux system) expose > timezone identifiers like "Asia/Shanghai" to end users directly. Then let's focus on getting those front ends fixed the way you like. Which front ends are they? The tz code ships only one front end, called tzselect, which works as shown at the end of this message. Note that at the crucial decision point, the user selects a #1 entry labeled "Beijing". So at least this front end works the way that you like. Perhaps all you need to do is to convince your distributors to switch to tzselect. Another possibility is for you to find out which front ends people are using, and fix those front ends. $ tzselect Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly. Please select a continent or ocean. 1) Africa 2) Americas 3) Antarctica 4) Arctic Ocean 5) Asia 6) Atlantic Ocean 7) Australia 8) Europe 9) Indian Ocean 10) Pacific Ocean 11) none - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format. #? 5 Please select a country. 1) Afghanistan 18) Israel 35) Palestine 2) Armenia 19) Japan 36) Philippines 3) Azerbaijan 20) Jordan 37) Qatar 4) Bahrain 21) Kazakhstan 38) Russia 5) Bangladesh 22) Korea (North) 39) Saudi Arabia 6) Bhutan 23) Korea (South) 40) Singapore 7) Brunei 24) Kuwait 41) Sri Lanka 8) Cambodia 25) Kyrgyzstan 42) Syria 9) China 26) Laos 43) Taiwan 10) Cyprus 27) Lebanon 44) Tajikistan 11) East Timor 28) Macau 45) Thailand 12) Georgia 29) Malaysia 46) Turkmenistan 13) Hong Kong 30) Mongolia 47) United Arab Emirates 14) India 31) Myanmar (Burma) 48) Uzbekistan 15) Indonesia 32) Nepal 49) Vietnam 16) Iran 33) Oman 50) Yemen 17) Iraq 34) Pakistan #? 9 Please select one of the following time zone regions. 1) east China - Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, etc. 2) Heilongjiang 3) central China - Gansu, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, etc. 4) Tibet & most of Xinjiang Uyghur 5) southwest Xinjiang Uyghur #? 1 The following information has been given: China east China - Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, etc. Therefore TZ='Asia/Shanghai' will be used. Local time is now: Sat Apr 22 01:03:53 CST 2006. Universal Time is now: Fri Apr 21 17:03:53 UTC 2006. Is the above information OK? 1) Yes 2) No #? 1 You can make this change permanent for yourself by appending the line TZ='Asia/Shanghai'; export TZ to the file '.profile' in your home directory; then log out and log in again. Here is that TZ value again, this time on standard output so that you can use the ./tzselect command in shell scripts: Asia/Shanghai

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Some modifications of China related timezone info.
by Zhe Su April 21, 2006

April 21, 2006

Hi, The attached patch is for tzdata2006d, which updates timezone info of China, such as, adding Asia/Beijing, linking PRC to Asia/Beijing instead of Asia/Shanghai, and some changes of timezone description. Nowadays, China uses only one unified timezone, which is known as "China Beijing time", so using Asia/Beijing instead of Asia/Shanghai is more reasonable. Regards James Su

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