[tz] North Korea ultimatum deadline time confusion

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Sat Aug 22 19:10:59 UTC 2015


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-with-north-to-defuse-border-tensions.html


More information about the tz mailing list