Venezuela changes rescheduled for 9 December

[Paul Eggert]

John Stainforth <STAIN at uk.ibm.com> writes:

> we are reacting to breaking news that the change for Venezuela
> originally expected for 31 December has been brought forward to 9
> December.

The most recent information I had was an article published 2007-11-22
by ABN <http://www.abn.info.ve/go_news5.php?articulo=111435&lee=7> (in
Spanish).  I don't read Spanish, but my understanding from that
article is that the decision was still tentative, and that they didn't
want to mess with the clocks before the big referendum this Sunday, as
that might confuse poll times.

> The official announcement was published today in the "Gaceta Oficial de la 
> Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela, número 38.819" (official document for 
> all laws or resolution publication) but is not available online yet.
>
> http://www.globovision.com/news.php?nid=72208

Thanks for the heads-up.  I didn't know about that.  That looks about
as definitive as we're going to get: they plan to switch from UTC-4 to
UTC-4:30 at 03:00 local time on December 9.

I'll send out a proposed patch shortly.