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risks "massive" political and economic consequences if Moscow does not enter into "negotiations that achieve results" over the situation in Ukraine.
• In an address to Parliament, Merkel told lawmakers the only way out of the crisis is through diplomacy and assured them that "the use of the military is no option."
• But, she said, the European Union and other western nations would soon freeze bank accounts and implement travel restrictions if Russia refused to enter "negotiations that achieve results and aren't just a play for time."
• If Moscow does not begin to "deescalate" the situation then, Merkel said the 28 European Union nations, the United States and other trans-Atlantic partners were prepared to take even stronger measures that would hit Russia economically.
• "If Russia continues on its course of the past weeks that will not only be a great catastrophe for Ukraine..." Merkel said in the nationally televised address. "It will cause massive damage to Russia, both economically and politically."
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• PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- The chief defense lawyer at Oscar Pistorius' murder trial on Thursday pointed out alleged missteps by police and questioned their treatment of evidence in the investigation of the athlete's killing of his girlfriend.
• Lawyer Barry Roux cross-examined a police forensics expert for a second day, challenging his analysis of a bullet-marked toilet door that was removed from the bathroom at Pistorius' home, where the double-amputee athlete fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp before dawn on Feb. 14, 2013.
• Pistorius has said he shot Steenkamp by mistake through the door, fearing there was a dangerous intruder in the house. The prosecution says he intentionally killed her after an argument.
• Roux said fragments went missing from the door after police investigators took possession of it, and he questioned the reliability of police studies of the door. The lawyer also noted that Vermeulen had not read Pistorius' version of events on the night of the killing until after he had completed his forensic study of the door, and was therefore leaning toward the prosecution's version of what happened.
• The colonel's testimony has also focused on a cricket bat that Pistorius said he used to break through the toilet door to get to Steenkamp after, according to his account, realizing his mistake.
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