Kyrgyzstan is the best place for Santa because it is close to China and India, while it is also located in the northern hemisphere, which is more densely populated than the southern.

For centuries, Santa Claus’ address has been the North Pole. But now, a group of Swedish engineers have insisted that Father Christmas needs to relocate to Kyrgyzstan for distributing the Christmas gifts on time.
In order to reach the conclusion, logistics experts calculated the most efficient route for Saint Nick to make his way round each of the world’s 2.5 billion households, and discovered that he is based in the wrong place.
So, they decided that his workshop needs to move 3,400 miles south, to a mountainous region of Kyrgyzstan in central Asia, a country once part of the former Soviet Union, ANI reported.
The isolated spot, 20 miles north of Kapkatash Mountain in the Jalal-Abad region, would place him at the geographical center of the world’s spread of children, with two of the biggest populations, China and India, at his footstep.
Anders Larsson, one of the experts behind the study at the Stockholm-based engineering consultants Sweco, which calculates optimum delivery routes for companies, said Kyrgyzstan is the best place because it is close to China and India, while it is also located in the northern hemisphere, which is more densely populated than the southern.
“Kyrgyzstan is the best place because it is close to China and India, while it is also located in the northern hemisphere, which is more densely populated than the southern,“ the Telegraph quoted him, as saying.
“By starting his journey there, Santa can achieve the most efficient round-the-world trip to distribute Christmas gifts. He can eliminate detours and avoid undue strain on his reindeer, too,“ he added.
The Swedish program recommends that Father Christmas start delivering his presents in eastern Asia, then fly west before finishing his journey in Alaska or Hawaii.
The Kyrgyzstan authorities have seized on the idea of relocating Santa to their country with enthusiasm.
Akbar Djigitov, tourism official, said: “It was a real surprise to find he would be best to set up his home in our country, but we think it perfect. Our mountains are very snowy, so he would feel at home.“

Visitors to Ban Manor House will have access to rooms occupied by the Chaplin family, including the first floor room where he died on Christmas Day 1977.

The vast mansion where Charlie Chaplin spent his last 24 years is to be turned into a museum dedicated to his life and the history of cinema in the 20th century.
Fifteen kilometers (nine miles) out of Lausanne, the mansion in English colonial style with its white colonnades, set in a magnificent wooded park of 13 hectares, was where Chaplin chose to settle in 1953 with his wife Oona and their eight children.
From the terrace you can see Lake Geneva and the Alps in the distance, AFP reported.
An agreement was signed last week by the Charlie Chaplin Museum Foundation to sell the Ban Manor House to Luxembourg investors to transform it into a museum recreating the magic universe of the beloved Little Tramp.
The project is expected to cost 35 million Swiss francs ($30 million, 21 million euros).
“We have got massive archives, interviews, films and family photos and his first contracts, which we are going to put on display in a dynamic way,“ Canadian Yves Durand, a Chaplin enthusiast involved in setting up the museum said.
The former staff quarters are to be turned into a 200-seat cinema while tapes of Chaplin talking about the secrets of his art will be played to bring alive displays in some of the rooms of the house.
Philippe Meylan, the museum’s promoter and architect, said: “We plan to put the furniture back where it was when the family was living here.“ In the salon the grand piano, which the eminent Swiss-Romanian pianist and Vevey resident Clara Haskil would play when she called on Chaplin, still has pride of place.
Visitors to the museum will have access to the most intimate rooms occupied by the Chaplin family, including the first floor room where he died on Christmas Day 1977.
In the vast vaulted cellars the museum’s designers plan to install a “Hollywood street“ complete with street lamps to recreate the atmosphere of the 1920s.
Until last year the house had still been lived in by Chaplin’s descendants.
Swiss cantonal authorities are expected to approve the sale to Luxemburgish investors early next year so the project can get under way for the museum to open its doors at the end of 2009.

A Ukrainian court banned the screening or distribution of any foreign films which are not dubbed or sub-titled in the national language, following a campaign against movies translated into Russian.
The constitutional court said foreign films would not be aired or distributed if “they are not dubbed or post-synchronized or do not have the captioning data in the state language.“
The move follows a campaign by the Ukrainian public movement Varto! calling for a boycott of foreign films dubbed in Russian or carrying Russian sub-titles, AFP reported.
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic with 47 million inhabitants, is split over the language issue.
Almost 42 percent of 1,800 people questioned in a poll say Ukrainian should be the only state language, whereas 30 percent want Russian to be also declared an official language, according to a poll.

Some of the earliest known depictions of Jesus are among the items in a collection of Vatican art and artifacts that will be on view in the US next year.
A reliquary containing bone fragments of St. Peter and personal belongings of Michelangelo are also among the 200 items scheduled for exhibit at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland in May, said AP.
“They (the Vatican) don’t let their treasures out very often. So when they put them out on display, it’s quite an extraordinary experience,“ historical society board Chairman Gary Adams told The Plain Dealer newspaper.
“Vatican Splendors from St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums and Swiss Guard“ will stop at only two other cities during its North American tour. The show will arrive in Cleveland after its debut in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The historical society had negotiated for months to host the exhibit and needed the approval of the Vatican and the Cleveland Catholic Diocese and support from the local Catholic community.

Scott made his drawing in 1904, after returning from his voyage aboard The Discovery.

Penguin sketches made by Captain Scott ,the first person to explore Antarctica extensively by land, and Ernest Shackleton, Anglo-Irish explorer, have been found in a basement at Cambridge University.
The legendary explorers drew the pictures on blackboards, probably for public lectures, in 1904 and 1909, said BBC.
Nobody knows how the fragile images, in need of cleaning and restoration, ended up at the University’s Scott Polar Research Institute.
Staff are appealing for donations to help preserve the signed chalk drawings and put them on public display.
“People often compare Scott and Shackleton in terms of their achievements as explorers and their leadership qualities,“ said Huw Lewis-Jones, the historian and curator of art who found the images.
“Now, albeit with a smile on our faces, we can judge their artistic abilities as well,“ he added.
He said they were still trying to trace how the pictures arrived at the institute but he was sure they were authentic.
“Some people may think they look a little crude but I think they are incredibly charming,“ he added.
Haw noted, “They were drawn at public lectures in front of an enthusiastic audience, to laughter and to cheers, and then signed with a flourish.“
“It’s like having the explorers’ autographs, only more wonderful, because each has signed their name next to a hand-drawn penguin,“ he said.
Scott made his drawing in 1904, after returning from his voyage aboard The Discovery.
Shackleton, who also took part in The Discovery expedition, made his sketch five years later, after coming within 150km (90 miles) of the South Pole--the furthest south any group had been at the time.
“Because they are so special we want to make sure that they are preserved for the future,“ said Heather Lane, librarian and keeper at the Scott Polar Research Institute.

Bangladesh cancelled plans to send rare artifacts to Paris for a museum exhibition next year after two ancient statues of a Hindu deity were stolen en route to France.
The 1,500-year-old rare terracotta statues of the Hindu god Vishnu disappeared from Zia International Airport in Dhaka last Saturday just hours before they were to be flown to the French capital, AFP reported.
The cabinet decided at a special meeting to cancel the exhibition in light of the apparent theft, a government statement said.
“The Guiment Museum would be informed regretfully that it would not be possible to go ahead with holding the exhibition of the items as planned,“ it said.
The statues were among 188 rare cultural items being sent to the Guimet Museum in the French capital for a major international exhibition on Bangladesh’s history and culture.
The first consignment of 42 items was sent to Paris on December 1.
Police also launched a nationwide hunt and sought help from Interpol to retrieve the stolen relics after detaining 15 people in connection with the case, he added.
The rare statues represent a deity known as the preserver of the universe. They were among the items selected from five state-run museums over opposition by some local art curators after an agreement between the French embassy and the government’s cultural affairs ministry.

Vietnam needs to control blogs to prevent the spread of subversive and sexually explicit content, communist government officials said according to a state media report.
Weblogs have exploded in Vietnam in recent years, especially among youths, providing a forum for chatting about mostly societal and lifestyle issues and providing an alternative to the state-controlled media.
Recent anti-Chinese protests over the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands, which were halted following rebukes from Beijing, were organized and debated on the Internet but almost completely ignored by the official press, AFP said.
The ministry responsible for culture and information, which controls traditional media, said in July it was drafting regulations that would fine bloggers who post subversive and sexually explicit content online.
Deputy Information and Communications Minister Do Quy Doan this week told a conference on Vietnam’s press law that “controlling weblogs is about developing them in accordance with the law, not forbidding them.“
He said, “We should provide guidelines that help people know what type of information they can upload online.“

The ancient Bam citadel (Arg-e Bam) after the destructive earthquake in December 2003
in Iran’s southern Kerman province. (Photo by Ali Hassanpour).