The director and screenwriter Pavel Lungin, the French ambassador to Russia Jean de Clay handed the signs of an officer of the Order of the Legion of Honor as a great artist and humanist, RIA Novosti reports. "Everyone knows you as a great artist and humanist, and France wants to pay tribute to these two qualities," the ambassador said to Lungin and attached the order.

The National Bank of the country introduces banknotes with a face value of 200 thousand local rubles. Until the last moment, the design of the new banknote was kept secret to avoid fakes. Its appearance is caused by an increase in inflationary processes in the country: according to the results of last year, due to the devaluation of the Belarusian ruble, inflation was almost 109%, Kommersant FM reports.

The State Symphony Orchestra of North Korea UNHASU (Milky Way) for the first time in the history of the DPRK, along with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France, will give a concert in Paris under the leadership of the South Korean conductor Jung Hong, OpenSpace reports about the link to the French resource 20Minutes .

The Romanian automaker Dacia, specializing in budget cars, introduced a new affordable minivan called Lodgy in Geneva, reports Finam The car will be available with two options for configuration of the passenger compartment: for five and seven seats. With the total length of the car of 4.5 meters, Lodgy offers convenient access to the salon even for passengers of the third row of seats. With a 5-seater arrangement of passengers, Lodgy trunk volume can vary from 827 to 2617 liters.

Police officers of St. Petersburg are investigating the robbery of the Church of Christian-Approvers of the Seventh Day, located on Maurice Torez Avenue. This was reported to the Interfax agency today by a source in law enforcement agencies of the Northern capital. According to him, on the eve of the night, unknown in masks penetrated through the window of the basement into the basement of the church building. Threatening the physical reprisal, robbers stole about 35 thousand rubles.

Despite the proposal of the Orthodox Christmas from the Estonian multicultural association (EMA), the Constitutional Commission of the Estonia Parliament refused to initiate the appropriate bill. According to the Rus.err.ee portal, last week the Constitutional Commission discussed EMA's application to announce from next year on January 7 - Orthodox Christmas - a state holiday.

Employees of law enforcement agencies of the Moscow Region are investigating the circumstances of the death in Serpukhov, an entrepreneur Anatoly Shera, a former partner of the Georgian businessman and politician Kakha Bendukidze. Pavel Savin, the son of a businessman who died in a hospital in the middle of December last year, suspects a deliberate murder.

As the publication "AvtoSreda" learned, from April 1, the most affordable version of the 2012 Granta "standard" will cost 239 thousand rubles instead of the previous 229 thousand. The “norm” package will rise in price by 13 thousand rubles - new cars in this version will cost 269 thousand rubles from April. The price of sedans of the “standard + alloy wheels” version will increase by 15 thousand rubles - Lada Granta of this configuration will cost 275 thousand rubles.

The hybrid electric car of the Fisker Karma premium, acquired by the American magazine Consumer Reports , has broken down less than 200 miles (320 km). Before breakdown, journalists drove by a car that they purchased as ordinary buyers in a dealer center in Connecticut, within 5 days. According to the journalists of the publication, the "superhibride" was to be tested, before which it was necessary to calibrate the speedometer. This procedure takes place every test car.

The weighted average US dollar exchange rate to the Russian ruble with the term of “Tomorrow” accounts at the auction of the Unified Trading Session of the Interbank currency exchanges as of 11:30 Moscow time, on the basis of which the process of the dollar course takes place the next day, increased by 12.60 kopecks and amounted to 29.666 rubles, Finmarket reports.

In order to attract private investments in the construction of garages, the Moscow authorities intend to offer developers to create parking networks. The Moscow government intends to start an experiment in the Central Administrative District, where there are not enough paid or free parking lots. According to RBC Daily , the city intends to make an “package proposal” to investors - to give in one hand in ten land plots in the Central Administrative District for the construction of garages.

Banks will be able to terminate bank accounts with customers if the operations on them seem suspicious, it follows from the draft law prepared by Rosfinmonitoring for discussion in the government, the Bank.ru portal writes.

From April 1, 2012, the export fee for Russian oil may increase by $ 47.3-50.5, to 458.5-461.7 dollars per ton from 411.2 dollars per ton in March, follows from the average monitoring price of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development and the formula for calculating the export fee in accordance with the taxation of the oil industry 60-66 ". "The average oil oil price for the period from February 15 to March 11 amounted to $ 123.2 per barrel.

As a result of the fighting on March 9-12, 21 people were killed on the territory of the Gas sector, the Ministry of Health under the Hamas government reports, among them two teenagers are 19 and 17 years old, as well as 19 militants of Islamic Jihad and People's Resistance Committee, Newsru Israel writes. The fighting in the sector, we recall, began after the radical Palestinian groups left the "non -decam regime" and began to fire missiles of Israel.

A resident of Kazan Sergey Nazarov, detained in the capital of Tatarstan on March 9 for hooliganism, was taken last Sunday to the hospital from the police department with gaps of the rectum. The man was operated on, but the night before he died. According to relatives, 52-year-old Nazarov managed to inform the doctors of the city hospital No. 18 before the operation that four police officers beat him and brutally raped him with a bottle of champagne.