North Korea ultimatum deadline time confusion
North Korea has delivered a 48-hour ultimatum to the South Korean Defense Ministry, saying that it will respond militarily unless South Korea stops broadcasting propaganda via loudspeakers over the border. There seems to be some confusion about the ultimatum's exact deadline. Ju-Min Park and James Person of Reuters report that although the ultimatum is "uncharacteristically specific", the deadline is "around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday in Seoul". Could the time confusion be due to the recent time zone change in North Korea? Park JM, Pearson J. North Korea goes on war footing against South Korea as deadline looms. Reuters 2015-08-21 12:53 -0400. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-northkorea-southkorea-border-id... $ date -u; TZ=Asia/Pyongyang date; TZ=Asia/Seoul date Fri Aug 21 17:12:37 UTC 2015 Sat Aug 22 01:42:37 KST 2015 Sat Aug 22 02:12:37 KST 2015
Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> writes:
North Korea has delivered a 48-hour ultimatum to the South Korean Defense
Ministry, saying that it will respond militarily unless South Korea stops
broadcasting propaganda via loudspeakers over the border. There seems to be
some confusion about the ultimatum's exact deadline. Ju-Min Park and James
Person of Reuters report that although the ultimatum is "uncharacteristically
specific", the deadline is "around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday in Seoul".
Could the time confusion be due to the recent time zone change in North Korea?
Here is from Shanghai Daily: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=298950 Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un chaired an emergency enlarged meeting of the central military commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea late Thursday, ordering frontline combined forces to enter state of war from 5 p.m. (0830 GMT) Friday. Unless South Korea stops the propaganda broadcasts within 48 hours from 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) Thursday, the DPRK will launch military actions, according to an ultimatum sent Thursday via military hotline by the general staff department of the Korean People's Army to the South Korean defense ministry. Last weekend, the DPRK threatened indiscriminate strikes against the loudspeakers, which Pyongyang demanded to be dismantled. Alexander Krivenyshev, WorldTimeZone.com
Alexander Krivenyshev wrote:
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=298950
Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un chaired an emergency enlarged meeting of the central military commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea late Thursday, ordering frontline combined forces to enter state of war from 5 p.m. (0830 GMT) Friday.
Unless South Korea stops the propaganda broadcasts within 48 hours from 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) Thursday, the DPRK will launch military actions
This is the sort of confusion I was referring to. Those two paragraphs use two different GMT offsets. I don't blame Reuters for saying "around 5 p.m."; it's a confusing situation. Thank goodness, the ultimatum was defused by today's meeting at Panmunjom that started either 1.5 or 2 hours after the ultimatum expired (the meeting started at 18:30). So perhaps the exact deadline wasn't that important. My source for "18:30" (and I'm guessing NYT reports South Korea time): Sang-Hun C. South and North Korea hold talks to defuse border tensions. New York Times 2015-08-22. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/world/asia/south-korea-announces-talks-wit...
There seems to be
some confusion about the ultimatum's exact deadline. Ju-Min Park and James
Person of Reuters report that although the ultimatum is "uncharacteristically
specific", the deadline is "around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday in Seoul".
Korean newspaper (use Google translate) http://www.korea-news.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=25029 pointed the deadline as 5:00 pm North Korea time (or 5:30 pm South Korea Time): 북한이 서부전선에서 벌어진 남북한 포격 사태에 따라 21일 오후 5시(남한 시간으로 오후 5시30 분)부터 전방지역에 '준전시상태'를 선포한다고 밝혔다. North Korea has said it declared a "quasi-wartime status' in the front area 17:00 (South hour 17:30) Alexander Krivenyshev, WorldTimeZone.com
participants (2)
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Alexander Krivenyshev -
Paul Eggert