it does, but it assumes that the timestamp you are giving it is from your current timezone. compare: >>> time.mktime(datetime.datetime.now().utctimetuple()

it does, but it assumes that the timestamp you are giving it is from your current timezone. compare: >>> time.mktime(datetime.datetime.now().utctimetuple()) 1310737652.0 >>> int(datetime.datetime.utcnow().strftime('%s')) 1310701659 my local timezone is +10, and mktime is adding it back in, hence why I always use strftime