Advisory: Syria to Observe Daylight Saving Time starting March 26

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Advisory: Syria to Observe Daylight Saving Time starting March 26

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that daylight saving time in Syria will begin on March 26, 2009. NO reports yet as to when DST will end in Syria this year.

The report states that The Syrian Ministers approved the suggestion by the Ministry of Electricity to begin work with the daylight saving time on Friday March 27th, with clocks set ahead 60 minutes on the night of Thursday March 26th as noted here in English and here in Arabic.

Microsoft's product teams are moving to a regular rhythm to update their products and services to reflect these time changes. For each update release, Microsoft accepts change requests at up to a few months prior to the release date. Please refer to Microsoft's Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests, providing recommendations in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies. We suggest that governments should provide the following when considering changing DST or making adjustments to time zones:

1. Ample advance notice (1 year or more) of the planned change.
2. Official published confirmation of planned changes to DST or time zones.
3. Concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens.

Important notes for governments:

  • Please refer to Microsoft's Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It's important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes.
  • We suggest that entities considering the DST changes consider implementing changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily systems, such as back ups, financial reports, data pulls or other automated tasks.