North Korea’s megalomaniac leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered the nation to take on a new time zone, in order to mark its liberation from Japan at the end of the Second World War. The new time zone will differ by just 30 minutes.
Both North and South Korea are currently on the same time zone as Japan, 9 hours ahead of GMT. However, until it was colonised by the Japanese in 1910, the entire Korean peninsula was just 8.5 hours ahead of GMT.
According to Korean Central New Agency, Korea had its original time zone taken from it by ‘wicked Japanese imperialists’, who changed it by half an hour to match their own during their occupation. The new ‘Pyongyang time’ will take effect from 15 August - the National Liberation Day of Korea, which celebrates the peninsula’s liberation from Japan. The day is marked as a national public holiday in South Korea.
The move it thought to be a way of boosting the profile of the North Korea’s fledgling dictator with anti-Japan nationalism - a popular view among many Koreans, particularly the elderly, as result of Japan’s colonial past.
Unlike its neighbour, South Korea will continue to use the same time zone as Japan, largely due to the practicality of dealing with many international businesses. Most states around the globe use time zones that vary by increments of an hour with only a handful - such as India and Myanmar - differing by half an hour. Source; uk.news.yahoo.com
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