From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has passed in the first reading a bill aimed at compensating Russian individuals hit by Western sanctions.
The draft law would allow individuals affected by property seizures outside Russia to receive compensation from Russia's state budget.
The draft law would also allow Russian judges to order the confiscation of property of foreign states.
Members of Russian opposition parties opposed the bill and it passed only by a vote of 233 to 202.
Russian Economy Minister Aleksei Ulyukaev has warned that passage of the bill would accelerate already high levels of capital flight.
The law was first proposed in April but was withdrawn after a government memo criticized it as being against international law and the Russian Constitution.
It was resubmitted in September, one day after Italian authorities seized $40 million of property belonging to Arkady Rotenberg, a Russian businessman and longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Just in from the French news agency AFP:
DONETSK, Ukraine, Oct 08, 2014 (AFP) -- Ukraine's eastern city Donetsk was under artillery fire Wednesday, with at least two people killed when shells hit an area northeast of the city center, AFP correspondents saw.
Rocket fire hit a neighborhood of the train station in the afternoon in the city controlled by the pro-Russian separatists. AFP correspondents saw two dead bodies near a cafe in the area.
Several injured people could be seen in the area after shells also hit a supermarket, a sports store, and a residential building.
Donetsk has come under increased fire in recent days despite a cease-fire between Kyiv and the pro-Russian separatists there, although it is often impossible to determine the origin of the attacks.