Samoa skip this Friday

Samoa skip this Friday goes directly from Thursday 29 to Saturday December 31

For over a century, Samoa has been 5 hours behind Miami and Washington, about 10 of London, 11 Madrid, 18 in Beijing and 21 in Sydney.

This will encourage trade and every week he missed two days of trading, according to the prime minister.

This change will mean the loss of tourist attraction that had the town of Falealupo, the last point at sunset.

Samoa and New Zealand territory of Tokelau in the South Pacific, made a somersault in time to skip a calendar day, a measure aimed at facilitating trade and seen as a challenge to God by a religious group.

For over a century, Samoa has been 5 hours behind Miami and Washington , about 10 of London , 11 Madrid , 18 Beijing and 21 in Sydney.

The change over a century ago was adopted by American business initiative to streamline the administration of naval trade with California, but the situation has changed.

Tokelau will make the same change in the calendar as it has its administrative offices in Samoa with the implementation of this Law from the International Date Change , Samoa jump midnight on December 29 directly to 31, so it will one of the first countries to welcome the New Year with the consequent loss of life from one day to about 180,000 Samoans.

Also Tokelau, a territory composed of three atolls in New Zealand and where close to 1,400 people , joined this initiative because most of its administrative operations are located in Apia, capital of Samoa.

The date change will leave Samoa addition to the other, which is under the sovereignty of the United States and located an hour's flight, a day away on the calendar, so this shift will create the feeling of having made a long journey.

On the tourism side, all is not optimistic in Samoa since the town of Falealupo , the last point at which the sun was lost that title has been an appeal taken into account by visitors when choosing a destination during this time.

Now is the Samoan American territory that will have these significant places, but in contrast, the people of Samoa, Tokelau and Kiritimati Island will be the first to welcome the New Year.

Proposal to facilitate trade

The measure was proposed last May by the Samoan Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele , who said that every week then lost two days of business because when your country is Friday in Australia and New Zealand is Saturday and Sunday hours in the their compatriots go to church in Sydney and Wellington already working as it is Monday.

Sailele defended the arrangement and said that promote trade with its two main partners, Australia and New Zealand, and tourists to avoid losing flights by the confusions of dates.

He also recalled that 90% of overseas Samoans reside in these two countries in Oceania and in that sense, he considered "vital" the adequacy of the schedule.

Once the leap into the future, the government will face the challenge of demonstrating to citizens that the impact on trade has been positive and that the measure has an impact on improving the quality of life , especially in those families living with about $ 20 a month, recently said Keni Lesa Mat'afa local commentator in an editorial in the Samoan Observer newspaper.

The people of Samoa, Tokelau and Kiritimati Island will be the first in the New Year Samoans addition there are also skeptics who are upset with the measure, especially the followers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to consider changing the line date is only imaginary and that its application violates the cycle of God's creation in a week.

"God does not recognize our right to remove an arbitrary calendar day, eliminating the weekly cycle. Seventh-day Adventists will not recognize this change," said Noeline Cutts in a letter last October to the Samoan Observer.

The main complaints received by the old system arose when there was the killing of a national New Zealand or Australia and his family had to organize the funeral.

Samoan Prime Minister explained that if the death happened on Friday came a "logistical nightmare" because "there were only a few hours to organize the trip to New Zealand before they close the immigration offices and banks during the weekend."

Samoa's economy depends on agriculture , remittances from Samoans living abroad, an emerging tourism industry and the growing trade with the countries of Oceania, China and Singapore.

Slots

The international date line date change, invented by Scottish Sandford Fleming in the late nineteenth century, is in the line of 180 degrees longitude and imaginary zigzag through the Pacific Ocean.

This was set at the conference held in Washington in 1884, organized to decide what had to be the prime meridian , whether Paris or London.

The defender of Greenwich , Richard Strachey, then suggested that the date change should happen "in a deserted place on Earth and not in the center of civilization."

Eight years later, the then ruler of the archipelago, Laupepa Malietoa , Samoa decided to put in the time today to facilitate trade with the United States.

Kiribati, near Samoa, decided in 1995 to move the international line of changing the date and time unifying the archipelago where the western part was about 22 hours ahead of EDT.