The online edition of The New YOrk Times had some article yesterday about how Samoa was moving from one side of the International Date Line to the other side. They will lose one entire day of existence. One day it will be Monday, the next day Wednesday. Samoa is the South Pacific, near American Samoa. Since the US came conquering in the 1800s, Samoa strongest trading ties were with the United States. Now they trade mostly with the Asian rim countries such as Singapore. They are deliberating aligning themselves with Asian time. Now they only have 3 days a week to do business with Asia.
The date line always confounds me. The Times said that you do not have to be physically in any date or time zone to use it as a time measurement. Europe could shift to the next day.
It reminded me of the conversation here.