Index: t3lib/config_default.php
===================================================================
--- t3lib/config_default.php	(revision 7456)
+++ t3lib/config_default.php	(working copy)
@@ -94,6 +94,7 @@
 		'setMemoryLimit' => 0,					// Integer, memory_limit in MB: If more than 16, TYPO3 will try to use ini_set() to set the memory limit of PHP to the value. This works only if the function ini_set() is not disabled by your sysadmin.
 		'forceReturnPath' => FALSE,				// Boolean: Force return path to be applied in mail() calls. If this is set, all calls to mail() done by t3lib_htmlmail will be called with '-f<return_path> as the 5th parameter. This will make the return path correct on almost all Unix systems. There is a known problem with Postfix below version 2: Mails are not sent if this option is set and Postfix is used. On Windows platforms, the return path is set via a call to ini_set. This has no effect if safe_mode in PHP is on.
 		'serverTimeZone' => 1,					// Integer, GMT offset of servers time (from time()). Default is "1" which is "GMT+1" (central european time). This value can be used in extensions that are GMT aware and wants to convert times to/from other timezones.
+		'phpTimeZone' => '',					// String: timezone to force for all date() and mktime() functions. A list of supported values can be found at http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php. If this is not set, a valid fallback will be searched by PHP (php.ini's date.timezone setting, server defaults, etc) and if no fallback is found, the value of "UTC" is used instead.
 		'systemLog' => '',						// String, semi-colon separated list: Defines one or more logging methods. Possible methods: file,<abs-path-to-file>[,<level>];mail,<to>[/<from>][,<level>];syslog,<facility>,[,<level>];error_log[,,<level>]. "file" logs to a file, "mail" sends the log entries via mail, "syslog" uses the operating system's log, "error_log" uses the PHP error log. The level is the individual logging level (see [SYS][systemLogLevel]. Facility may be one of LOCAL0..LOCAL7, USER (on Windows USER is the only valid type).
 		'systemLogLevel' => 0,					// Integer: Only messages with same or higher severity are logged; 0 is info, 1 is notice, 2 is warning, 3 is error, 4 is fatal error.
 		'enableDeprecationLog' => TRUE,			// Boolean: Enables the logging of deprecated methods and functions. The log file will be written to typo3conf/deprecation_[hash-value].log
@@ -403,6 +404,19 @@
 }
 require(PATH_typo3conf.'localconf.php');
 
+	// Set timezone
+if (!empty($GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['phpTimeZone'])) {
+	date_default_timezone_set($GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['phpTimeZone']);
+} elseif (!ini_get('date.timezone')) {
+		// Set the default to avoid E_WARNINGs under PHP 5.3
+	if (@date_default_timezone_get() !== '') {
+			// Might come from the server environment (TZ env or OS query)
+		date_default_timezone_set(@date_default_timezone_get());
+	} else {
+		date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
+	}
+}
+
 	// Defining the database setup as constants
 define('TYPO3_db', $typo_db);
 define('TYPO3_db_username', $typo_db_username);