Obelix becomes Russian

Gerard Depardieu, the Obelix depicter in the movie "Asterix & Obelix" and one of France's biggest stars, is a Russian citizen as of today after president Vladimir Putin signed a decree giving the actor citizenship. The move comes over two weeks after he announced that he was moving to Belgium -- to the village of Nechin where residents pay no capital gains tax on share sales -- and less than a week after France's Constitutional Council rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate to be introduced in 2013, a setback to Socialist President Francois Hollande's push to make the rich contribute more to cutting the public deficit.