Iran

Iran turns clocks forward one hour to save more daylight

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Iran has turned forward its official time by one hour at midnight (0330 GMT) on Friday, March 21, to observe Daylight Savings Time (DST).

The longer hours of daylight in the evenings will run until September 21, 2013, when Iranians will turn clocks back by an hour.

Iran observed daylight savings time for 15 years until March 2006, when the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to temporarily stop the practice, saying the pause would allow experts to better study whether or not DST affects energy consumption as it was originally intended.

After a year of serious debate over the issue, in 2007 Iran’s Majlis passed a bill mandating the official time to be changed twice a year.

According to the bill, the country’s official time will be changed once at the beginning of the Iranian calendar year (beginning March 21 or March 20 on leap years) and once at the start of the second half of the Iranian year.

DST is the convention of advancing clocks by one hour so that evenings include more hours of daylight while mornings contain fewer hours. Typically, clocks are adjusted forward one hour in late winter or early spring and are moved one hour back in autumn.

Governments often promote DST as an energy conservation measure on the grounds that it helps substitute natural summer sunlight for electric lighting.

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