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North Korea to set clocks back by 30 minutes on August 15

The country thus intends to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from the Japanese occupation marked on August 15

© Yury Smityuk/TASS

PYONGYANG, August 7. /TASS/. North Korea will switch to a new time standard next week setting the clocks all over the country back by 30 minutes. The country thus intends to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from the Japanese occupation marked on August 15, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday.

It noted that the new time standard corresponds to the real astronomical time and will differ from the Japanese time. "The Japanese imperialists committed unpardonable crimes depriving Korea even of its own time," the agency said.

The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese occupation between 1910 and 1945. During that period the colonial authorities introduced Japanese time for the entire Korea. North Korea is currently in the same time zone as South Korea and Japan.

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