WORLD NEWS | DST dispute leaves Lebanon with two time zones

BEIRUT, March 26 (AP) — The Lebanese government’s last-minute decision to delay the start of daylight saving time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan led to mass chaos Sunday.

As some institutions enact changes and others resist, many Lebanese find themselves juggling work and school schedules in different time zones — in a country that is just 88 kilometers (55 miles) across at its widest point.

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In some cases, the debate has become sectarian, with many Christian politicians and institutions, including the Maronite Church, the largest church in the small country, opposing the move.

The small Mediterranean country usually sets its clocks forward one hour on the last Sunday in March, in line with most European countries.

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However, the Lebanese government announced on Thursday that caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati had decided to delay the start of daylight saving time until April 21.

No reason was given for the decision, but a video leaked to local media of a meeting between Mikati and parliament speaker Nabih Berry showed that Berry asked Mikati to delay the implementation of daylight saving time so that Muslims end Ramadan an hour earlier.

Mikati responded that he made a similar proposal, but went on to say that implementing the change would be difficult because it would cause problems with airline flight schedules, with Berri interjecting, “What flight?”

After announcing the postponement of daylight saving time, Lebanon’s state-owned airline Middle East Airlines said it would move an hour earlier for all flights scheduled to depart from Beirut airport between Sunday and April 21.

The country’s two cellular phone networks sent messages to people asking them to change their clock settings to manual rather than automatic so that the time would not change at midnight, although the time was advanced in many cases.

While public institutions are theoretically bound by the government’s decision, many private institutions, including television stations, schools and businesses, announced they would ignore the decision and switch to daylight saving time on Sunday as originally planned.

Even some public institutions refuse to comply. Education Minister Abbas Halabi said in a statement late Sunday that the decision had no legal force because it was not taken at a cabinet meeting.

He wrote that if the government meets and approves the decision, “we will be the first to implement it”, but until then, “daylight saving time will still be approved and applied in the education sector”.

Soha Yazbek, a professor at the American University of Beirut, is one of many parents who find themselves and their children now tied to different schedules.

“So now I drop my kids off at 8am but arrive at work 42km away at 7.30am and then I leave work at 5pm but I’m home an hour later at 7pm!!”

For the benefit of her non-Lebanese friends, Yazbek tweeted, “I’m not crazy, I’m just living in wonderland.”

Haruka Naito, a Japanese NGO worker living in Beirut, found she had to be in two places at once on Monday morning.

“I have an 8 a.m. appointment and a 9 a.m. class that will now run concurrently,” she said. Her 8am appointment for her resident papers was with a government agency after official time, while her 9am Arabic class was with an institution that was expected to transition to daylight saving time.

The split has led to jokes about “Muslim time” and “Christian time,” while different Internet search engines turned up different results when looking up the current time in Lebanon early Sunday morning.

While sectarian divisions have broken down in many cases, some Muslims have also opposed the change, noting that fasting should begin at dawn and end at sunset, regardless of time zone.

Many see the issue as a distraction from larger economic and political issues in the country.

Lebanon is in the midst of the worst financial crisis in its modern history. Three-quarters of the population live in poverty, and IMF officials recently warned that the country could be heading toward hyperinflation if no action is taken.

Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun’s term ended in late October, as parliament failed to elect a successor. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)