Israeli cabinet approves extension of daylight savings time

2011-07-04 03:14:11 GMT+7 (ICT)

JERUSALEM (BNO NEWS) -- The Israeli cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved draft legislation to extend daylight savings time, pursuant to the recommendations of a committee chaired by Dan Kehat, which was appointed by Interior Minister Eli Yishai.

According to the legislation, daylight savings time will be extended to an average of 193 days, as opposed to 182 currently. The change would make daylight savings time come into effect at 2 a.m. local time on the Friday of the last week of March and will end at 2 a.m. local time on the first Sunday of October.

According to the Israeli government, extending daylight savings time will promote better coordination with Europe's economic clock, extend daylight hours and save electricity and resources for the Israeli economy. In order to hasten completion of the legislation so that it might take effect this year, the cabinet authorized the Ministerial Committee on Legislation to discuss the draft and submit it to the Knesset.

"Now, we will be able to consider how the issue works in practice," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the approval an 'important and long overdue' step. "This has been discussed for years and it was not possible to check its actual effects, but we are taking action."

Earlier this year, Russians set their clocks one hour forward for perhaps the last time, effectively making daylight saving time permanent in its nine timezones. "Everybody hates it [..] and everybody becomes irritated. People either oversleep or wake up too early and don't know what to do with the extra hour," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said previously.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-07-04

Slow news day?

Very, very slow.

in other news israel has renamed the west bank settlement ariel, "daylight savings time"

My dog farted,news worthy? You make the call.