(Newswire.net — August 7, 2015) — Declaring time zone as something Japanese imposed after World War II, North Korea set their time 30 minutes back, becoming the only country in the world with half an hour distance between nearest time zones, BBC reported.
North Korea is to switch to a new time zone to mark its liberation from the Japanese at the end of World
The last dictatorship country in the world is currently in the same time zone as South Korea and Japan, which are nine hours ahead of GMT. However, on August 15th clocks in North Korea will be set a 30 minutes back.
According the North Korea’s news agency KCNA “wicked Japanese imperialists” had “deprived Korea of even its standard time” by changing the clocks during occupation.
Reportedly, until Japan colonized Korea, one country before 1910, the entire Korean peninsula was 8.5 hours ahead of GMT.
BBC report quoted North Korea’s KCNA saying the decision to adopt Pyongyang Time reflected “the unshakeable faith and will of the service personnel and people on the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation”.
Giving that Kaesong industrial plant in North Korea is jointly run by the two Koreas, the South Korea officials emphasized the move could cause some short-term inconvenience.
“And in the longer term, there may be some fallout for efforts to unify standards and reduce differences between the two sides,” Unification Ministry official Jeong Joon-Hee said.
There is no international body that regulate one country’s time zone, it is just excepted that way in the world. If some country changes the time zone, there is no international body that approves or disapproves it.
Aparently, North Korea is not the only country that has created its own unique time zone.
In 2011, Samoa changed its time zone in order to make communication easier with neighbors Australia and New Zealand. To do so, Samoa lost entire day in calendar.
In 2007, Venezuela decided to turn its clocks back by half an hour as President Hugo Chavez wanted to have a “more fair distribution of the sunrise” to residents.
Venezuela is now the only country with a time zone 4.5 hours behind GMT.