:00:00. > :00:08.This is BBC World News Today with me, Philippa Thomas. Pro-Russian
:00:09. > :00:16.demonstrations spread in East Ukraine, as governments in Europe
:00:17. > :00:18.and the US urge restraint. As protestors ransack another police
:00:19. > :00:29.station, Britain blames Moscow for orchestrating the violence. There is
:00:30. > :00:32.very little doubt, there cannot be any real doubt, that this is
:00:33. > :00:37.something which has been planned and brought about by Russia. Oscar
:00:38. > :00:40.Pistorius is accused of concocting his evidence after another day of
:00:41. > :00:48.dramatic exchanges at his murder trial. In the Nigerian capital,
:00:49. > :00:52.leaving at least 70 people dead. And has Banksy been at it again? The
:00:53. > :01:11.Graffiti Guru is believed to be behind this piece of street art,
:01:12. > :01:14.satirising British spies. Hello and welcome. Militants now occupy
:01:15. > :01:19.government buildings in at least ten cities in eastern Ukraine. The
:01:20. > :01:22.deadline at which the Ukraine government in Kiev said it would
:01:23. > :01:27.launch a "large scale anti terrorist operation" against them, came and
:01:28. > :01:31.went today. Far from backing down, it seems the protests have
:01:32. > :01:33.intensified. Russian media say President Putin has received
:01:34. > :01:39.requests for help and intervention from several parts of eastern
:01:40. > :01:41.Ukraine. In the latest development, the rebels have seized another
:01:42. > :01:58.police station, in Horlivka, near Donetsk. Daniel Sandford reports on
:01:59. > :02:01.the day's events. SHOUTING. A moment of extreme attention today as the
:02:02. > :02:04.morning shoppers emerged from their homes. Gunmen suddenly took up
:02:05. > :02:07.defensive positions. There was a rumour that government forces were
:02:08. > :02:12.about to attack this rebellious town in Eastern Ukraine. In the end, the
:02:13. > :02:15.attack never came. Despite the threat of what the Kiev government
:02:16. > :02:18.called an anti-terrorist operation, the people here have remained
:02:19. > :02:25.resolutely in place and the barricades are still standing. I
:02:26. > :02:32.asked the men manning the defences if they were worried about a
:02:33. > :02:36.possible attack. TRANSLATION: Of course we are worried. Although here
:02:37. > :02:41.it is peaceful, we stand up for our principles. Then, as we went through
:02:42. > :02:47.the checkpoints, the news that pro-Russian militia were storming
:02:48. > :02:50.another police headquarters. This was the scene at the police station,
:02:51. > :02:53.where activists smashed windows, threw rocks and quickly took over
:02:54. > :03:03.the building, placing a Russian flag outside. The chief of police ended
:03:04. > :03:07.up in hospital with a broken skull. Even on the day that the Kiev
:03:08. > :03:10.government had threatened to start attacking those in the East taking
:03:11. > :03:17.over police stations, they have taken another one. Inside, we found
:03:18. > :03:24.some people still at their desks, now apparently loyal to the new
:03:25. > :03:28.power in town. Then these pictures emerged in which a man who claims to
:03:29. > :03:35.be a Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Army addresses some of the
:03:36. > :03:38.police in the road. The same man can also be seen on mobile phone footage
:03:39. > :03:43.addressing the crowd outside the building, after the takeover. This
:03:44. > :03:48.is fuelling concerns that Russia is fuelling these protests. We found
:03:49. > :03:56.many people with genuine grievances against the Ukrainian government.
:03:57. > :04:01.TRANSLATION: All the 23 years that Ukraine has been in charge here,
:04:02. > :04:04.they have been stealing. It was all further evidence that Kiev is
:04:05. > :04:07.struggling to control the rebellious East although the number of people
:04:08. > :04:25.actively supporting the uprising is still quite small. James Reynolds is
:04:26. > :04:29.in Donetsk. Are you finding that the number of protesters is relatively
:04:30. > :04:37.small, although they are obviously making a big show of it? We are
:04:38. > :04:41.finding, when we look at the occupations of those buildings in
:04:42. > :04:45.ten cities, they are not mass occupations in terms of hundreds of
:04:46. > :04:51.thousands of people. They looked to be occupations by certain groups of
:04:52. > :04:56.people. Here in Donetsk, the traffic is normal, people are going about
:04:57. > :05:01.their business, there is a Ukrainian flag on a nearby building. There is
:05:02. > :05:05.also a Russian flag. There are localised pockets of trouble, but
:05:06. > :05:12.the government in Kiev, any localised problems, are still big
:05:13. > :05:16.political problems. The occupation of one police station will be too
:05:17. > :05:20.much for Kiev. Other protesters feeling fairly confident tonight, in
:05:21. > :05:27.that the big operation threatened by Kiev did not happen? I am sure they
:05:28. > :05:31.will be. You will have seen that they were not particularly worried
:05:32. > :05:35.when that deadline came along. They either thought it would not happen
:05:36. > :05:40.or thought they would survive it. They have done so. They will not be
:05:41. > :05:44.particularly worried by any more deadlines or ultimatums in the next
:05:45. > :05:50.few days, it should the authorities decide to issue any more. Russia is
:05:51. > :05:55.still playing at the strongman. There have been fairly aggressive
:05:56. > :06:05.tactics from a Russian fighter jet over the weekend. This happened on
:06:06. > :06:12.Saturday in their Black Seed. A Russian jet flew about 900 metres by
:06:13. > :06:18.several times by a US destroyer for about 90 minutes US called the
:06:19. > :06:22.action provocative. The jet appeared to be unarmed, but it indicates the
:06:23. > :06:26.kind of tensions there are at the moment between the United States and
:06:27. > :06:33.States and Russia and this is a sum -- symbolic act. Thank you. With me
:06:34. > :06:36.is Robin Niblett. He's Director of the think-tank The Royal Institute
:06:37. > :06:44.of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House. What do you make
:06:45. > :06:50.of the way the Russians are playing this? Is there an appetite for war?
:06:51. > :06:57.I think they would like to avoid that, as would all sides. There is a
:06:58. > :07:02.clear determination not to allow the elections to proceed in Ukraine in
:07:03. > :07:07.May as planned. There is a clear determination to want to make sure
:07:08. > :07:13.that the idea of a federal Ukraine, a Russian concept of a federal
:07:14. > :07:20.Ukraine, in which Ukrainian provinces would be able to determine
:07:21. > :07:24.their own external relations. A group of small parts of the East
:07:25. > :07:30.cannot be integrated into Ukraine in the way the government would want.
:07:31. > :07:38.Why is so determined not to have the elections go ahead? Ultimately, if
:07:39. > :07:42.the election takes place, it will become clear how many citizens in
:07:43. > :07:47.the East really want to join Russia in the way that Crimea did. There is
:07:48. > :07:52.far more ambivalent amongst the populations in the east than one
:07:53. > :07:57.might think, certainly by Russian leaders. We are in a situation by
:07:58. > :08:01.having troops on the border and the example of Crimea and having other
:08:02. > :08:05.groups in there, moving the situation forward, we have an
:08:06. > :08:11.impression of an East which wants to detach itself, even though most
:08:12. > :08:18.analysts do not believe that. There is some breaking news that the White
:08:19. > :08:24.House has said that President Obama is to contact President Putin,
:08:25. > :08:33.making clear that the US is not considering legal aid for Ukraine.
:08:34. > :08:40.Is this positive? President Putin will have to determine how he has
:08:41. > :08:45.handled himself. Ultimately, the decisions that will be made, will be
:08:46. > :08:50.determined by how Russia handles this. There is no circumstance under
:08:51. > :08:58.which western troops would get involved in Ukraine. There is not a
:08:59. > :09:04.military option on the western side. The strength is economic, Russia's
:09:05. > :09:07.economy is in a weak position, but the issue of sanctions, very
:09:08. > :09:14.gradually held and held in reserve in key is something more extreme is
:09:15. > :09:19.done, but in the meantime, trade agreements with Ukraine, financial
:09:20. > :09:22.aid, opening up markets in the EU to products from Ukraine, that is
:09:23. > :09:29.detaching that part of the Ukraine which wants to be part of the EU.
:09:30. > :09:32.Thank you. The South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, has been accused in
:09:33. > :09:35.court of "concocting his evidence" about the night he shot dead his
:09:36. > :09:39.girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. It's been suggested she wanted to leave
:09:40. > :09:42.after a row. He insists he woke up and thought there was an intruder in
:09:43. > :09:52.the house. Our correspondent Andrew Harding reports from Pretoria. Back
:09:53. > :09:56.in court and some well-wishers waiting for Oscar Pistorius. He
:09:57. > :10:02.strode aside the balloons, the hug was harder to escape. In court,
:10:03. > :10:09.there was no hint of sympathy from Gerrie Nel, a prosecutor dubbed the
:10:10. > :10:14.Pit bull. Your version is so a probable that it cannot be
:10:15. > :10:18.reasonable. The focus again today, the circumstances of Reeva
:10:19. > :10:22.Steenkamp's death, the prosecutor looking for holes in the story of
:10:23. > :10:33.Oscar Pistorius, insisting the couple had a fight. I am saying that
:10:34. > :10:38.she wanted to leave and that you were not sleeping. You were both
:10:39. > :10:46.awake. That is not correct. It is untrue. There was an argument. Then
:10:47. > :10:50.Oscar Pistorius was asked again about his movement from the bedroom
:10:51. > :10:59.to the bathroom, where he says he feared intruders had broken in. I
:11:00. > :11:07.screamed, I shouted get out of my house! Get out of my house! But
:11:08. > :11:12.Gerrie Nel was sceptical. He got a policeman to sit in the toilet
:11:13. > :11:16.cubicle, reconstructed in court, to show where Reeva Steenkamp might
:11:17. > :11:21.have been. Under relentless pressure, Oscar Pistorius struggled
:11:22. > :11:25.badly, sometimes evasive, sometimes changing his evidence as the
:11:26. > :11:28.prosecutor kept asking how it was possible he had fired four times
:11:29. > :11:35.without checking who was on the other side. You fired at Reeva. The
:11:36. > :11:51.other versions are not true. You fired at her. Why are you getting
:11:52. > :11:56.emotional? I did not fire at Reeva! This was a tough day for the athlete
:11:57. > :12:00.who was not shown on the cameras, as usual. His evidence has been shown
:12:01. > :12:12.to be incomplete and at times inconsistent. Here is some of our
:12:13. > :12:16.other new. In other news... The trial has begun in Libya of Saif
:12:17. > :12:19.al-Islam, the son of the deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He
:12:20. > :12:22.faces charges of corruption and war crimes. A number of former senior
:12:23. > :12:24.officials are also being tried, including Colonel Gaddafi's former
:12:25. > 0:05:29spy chief and former Prime Minister. Police investigating a tip-off