RFC3339.scala

DateTimeFormat.forPattern("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss ZZZ").parseDateTime(s)

String s = "2011-11-29 10:40:24 Etc/GMT";

// split the input in a date and a timezone part            
int lastSpaceIndex = s.lastIndexOf(' ');
String dateString = s.substring(0, lastSpaceIndex);
String timeZoneString = s.substring(lastSpaceIndex + 1);

// convert the timezone to an actual TimeZone object
// and feed that to the formatter
TimeZone zone = TimeZone.getTimeZone(timeZoneString);
DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
formatter.setTimeZone(zone);

// parse the timezoneless part
Date date = formatter.parse(dateString);