When lebanon change time?

BEIRUT, March 26 (Reuters) - Lebanon woke up in two time zones on Sunday amid an escalating dispute between political and religious authorities over a decision to delay the clock change by a month.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati decided on Thursday not to start daylight savings time over the last weekend of March - as usually happens in Lebanon, Europe and other regions - but instead to roll clocks forward an hour on April 20.

Though no reason was given for the decision, it was widely seen as a concession to Muslims, allowing those observing the holy month of Ramadan to break their daylight-hours fasts at around 6 p.m. rather than 7 p.m.

But Lebanon's influential Maronite church, the largest Christian church in the country, announced it would not abide by the decision, saying there had been no consultations or considerations of international standards.

It turned its clocks forward, and other Christian organisations, parties and schools announced similar plans. Lebanon’s education minister, Abbas Halabi, also said on Sunday schools would operate on daylight savings time - against the government decision.

Meanwhile, Muslim institutions and parties appeared set to remain in winter time, deepening divides in a country that was rocked by a 1975-90 civil war between Christian and Muslim factions and where parliament seats are allocated by religious sect.

Businesses and media organizations, including two of Lebanon's main news channels - LBCI and MTV - announced they too would enter daylight savings time. "Lebanon is not an island," LBCI said in a statement.

Others tried to adapt.

Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines said its clocks would stay in winter time but it would adjust its flight times to keep in line with international schedules.

The state-run telecoms duopoly sent messages to customers advising them to set the time on their devices manually, in case the clocks had automatically gone forward.

Many said the potential chaos was emblematic of decades of failed governance by leaders that led Lebanon into a 2019 financial crisis the World Bank said was "orchestrated" by elites.

"They create problems to deepen the division between Muslims and Christians ... those in power are the ones benefiting from peoples' disputes," said Mohamed al-Arab, standing in the street with his friends in Tariq al-Jdideh, a dominantly Sunni Muslim area in Beirut.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mikati, a Sunni, announced the decision after a meeting with Shi'ite parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who repeatedly insisted on the change, according to a video of the meeting published by local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

"Instead of it being 7 o'clock, let it stay 6 o'clock from now until the end of Ramadan," Berri said in the clip.

During the meeting, Mikati was seen responding that the request was not possible because it would cause "problems", including to flight scheduling.

But later that day, Mikati announced the decision to stay in winter time.

His office said on Saturday night the decision was a "purely administrative procedure" that was being given "an obnoxious sectarian turn".

A spokesperson for the premier's office said it did not have an immediate comment on the reasoning behind the decision or on the resulting backlash.

Caretaker justice minister Henry Khoury, a Christian, called on Mikati in a statement late on Saturday to reverse the move, in the first objection from within the cabinet.

Khoury said the decision “violated the principle of legitimacy” and had caused splits in Lebanese society and along religious lines at a time when Lebanon is already facing multiple crises.

At a Beirut cafe on Saturday evening, a Reuters journalist heard one customer ask: "Will you follow the Christian or Muslim clock starting tomorrow?"

Some Twitter users shared an old recording of famed Lebanese composer and musician Ziad Rahbani speaking about daylight savings.

"Each year, you put the clock forward an hour and you keep us back 10 years," he says, addressing Lebanese politicians.

They have a nationwide clock change from standard time to daylight saving time, where the clocks are switched forward by one hour in summer. The next clock change in Lebanon will be on October 28th, 2023 at 1:00 to standard time.

The people of Lebanon woke up at the beginning of this week to find themselves torn between two time zones after the government made a last-minute decision to postpone the switch to Daylight Saving Time (DST). Clocks in the country had been set to spring forward one hour on Sunday, but the speaker of Lebanon's parliament, Nabih Berri, asked the country's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati late last week to postpone the move until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

"It's just between now and the end of Ramadan," Berri is heard saying in a video leaked online showing the two leaders discuss the matter. "Once Ramadan is over, let them have what they want."

The two leaders — both Muslims — appeared to be in favor of the idea, which means Muslims in the country can break their Ramadan fast an hour earlier. Despite admitting the sudden change could "create all sorts of problems," the prime minister decided to delay the transition to DST, and the move was announced Thursday.

As he predicted, the move created all sorts of problems. Airline companies struggled to amend their flight schedules, cloud-based digital servers used by cell phone operators couldn't be synchronized, and hospitals and banking systems that share platforms with other institutions outside Lebanon were badly impacted.

The American University in Beirut announced that while classes and instructional activities on campus would be held on DST, appointments and inpatient procedures at its medical center would continue to be scheduled on winter time, at least until the university's IT teams were able to reconfigure the systems.

Apart from the actual glitches, the last-minute change in plans also brought a flood of angry criticism, especially from Lebanon's Christian communities.

"The hasty decision… issued by the caretaker Prime Minister, Mr. Najib Mikati, without consulting with other Lebanese components, without any regard for international standards, causes confusion and damage at home and abroad," the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch of the Maronite Church in Lebanon said in a statement, stressing that the church would not abide by it.

Lebanese people took to social media to mock the decision, which many said was taken by two men alone who had completely failed to consider the consequences of their action.

Video posted online by one Twitter user showed two sides of the same digital clock at Beirut Airport displaying two different times, with a message ridiculing both leaders apparently behind the chaos and a hashtag lamenting country's collective "shame."

Another Twitter user showed screenshots from search engines Google and Bing reflecting different times in the country. Microsoft appeared to be heeding the government's decision to delay the clock change, while Google was still telling people on Monday that Lebanon was on winter time.

"Making appointments in Lebanon for the next month: 'See you tomorrow at 2 pm Muslim time, 3 pm Christian time," joked another user.

Amid the chaos and criticism, Mikati announced later Monday that he was reversing his decision, and that the shift to summertime would be implemented Wednesday night.

"That is to give a few days to undo some of the changes that occurred" as a result of the postponement of Daylight Saving Time, he said.

"But let's be clear," the prime minister told reporters, "the problem is not with winter or summer time, but rather with the vacuum caused by the absence of a president, and from my position as prime minister, I bear no responsibility for this vacuum."

Lebanon has been mired by political and economic chaos since outgoing President Michel Aoun's election mandate expired in October 2022, leaving the country without a president and in the hands of a caretaker cabinet with limited powers and a parliament deeply divided along sectarian lines.

The country's economy is in ruins, with an inflation rate exceeding 125% and a local currency that's lost 80% of its value against the dollar since last year.