UN urges huge increase in green energy to avert climate disaster

The Conservatives have been planning to block further onshore windfarm construction. Photograph: Danny Lawson/Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

David Cameron's commitment to the green agenda will come under the fiercest scrutiny yet this week when top climate-change experts will warn that only greater use of renewable energy – including windfarms – can prevent a global catastrophe.

A report by the world's leading authorities will expose a growing gulf between a Tory party intent on halting construction of more onshore windfarms and the world's leading scientists, who see them as one of the cheapest ways to provide energy while at the same time saving the environment.

Mitigation of Climate Change, by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a panel of 200 scientists, will make it clear that by far the most realistic option for the future is to triple or even quadruple the use of renewable power plants. Only through such decisive action will carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere be kept below the critical level of 480 parts per million (ppm), before the middle of the century. If levels go beyond this figure, the chances of curtailing global mayhem are poor, they will say.

The report – the third in a series by the IPCC designed to highlight the climate crisis now facing the planet – is intended as an urgent wake-up call to nations to commit around 1-2% of GDP in order to replace power plants that burn fossil fuels, the major cause of global warming, with renewable sources.

Photograph: Opinium

Its conclusions represent a huge challenge for Cameron and the Conservative party – which is now laying plans to block the construction of new onshore windfarms in Britain, the country's only realistic, reasonably priced renewable energy option other than solar power, which has limited potential in the UK.

Having promised to lead "the greenest government ever", Cameron now stands accused by the green lobby of watering down his commitments in response to the threat of Ukip, which campaigns heavily against windfarms.

The prime minister's green credentials have also been called into question by the appointment in 2012 of Owen Paterson, a climate-change sceptic, as environment secretary. Paterson said in September 2013: "People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries."

An Opinium/Observer poll – which today puts Ukip on 18% support – also finds that just 15% of voters think Cameron has lived up to his promises on the environment, against 46% who think he has not. In addition, only 20% disagreed with the suggestion that the government was giving priority to short-term economic growth over the sustainable use of the environment.

Last week local government secretary Eric Pickles announced he had taken personal control over all future decisions about new onshorewindfarms, while Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, said wind turbines were no longer "environmentally friendly". Shapps also suggested that the Tories would pledge to curb them in their 2015 election manifesto and instead approve only offshore windfarms.

However, the move would cripple the ability of the government to play a full part in curtailing carbon dioxide emissions, and experts warn it could lead to higher energy prices.

Onshore wind power costs around £90 per megawatt hour to generate, but for offshore windfarms this rises to £150. Other renewable energy sources are either of limited use in Britain or are not yet fully developed, such as tidal power. Nuclear energy is one alternative, but is controversial, and a major construction programme would take decades to approve and construct.

"Renewable energy is backed by the public; wind power has the support of two thirds (66%) of Britons and the CBI has called on action to tackle climate change," said Christian Aid's senior climate change advisor, Mohamed Adow. "The government should be doing all it can to put the UK at the forefront of this energy revolution not blowing hot and cold on the issue.

Joss Garman, Greenpeace's deputy political director, said: "These scientists have shown us that it's not too late and we can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change, but only if we get behind the clean energy solutions that can slash carbon pollution. Renewable energy technologies are already the least-cost option in a growing number of major markets, and they're getting cheaper all the time.Rather than turning back towards dirty fuels like coal and gas, now is the time for Ministers to double down on our transition towards a cleaner energy system. This report shows that the sooner we act, the cheaper it will be."

The new report has taken four years to compile. It is expected to say the UN target – to limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius (3.6 degrees fahrenheit) – is feasible only if surging carbon emissions are swiftly braked and then reversed.

The first report forecast that global temperatures would rise by 0.3-4.8C this century, on top of roughly 0.7C since the industrial revolution. Seas are forecast to rise by 26-82cm by 2100. The second report, which was issued last month, dwelt on the likely impacts and warned that the risk of conflict, hunger, floods and mass displacement increased with every minuscule rise in temperature.

The panel will issue a résumé of all three reports in Copenhagen in October, prior to the next major UN climate summit, which is scheduled to open in Paris in December 2015.

The last IPCC assessment report, published in 2007, formed the core of the international debate on climate at the UN's Copenhagen Summit in 2009. The event degenerated into a political brawl and climate negotiations have been stuttering ever since. Climate experts say this failure to act cannot be allowed to continue. UN members must agree to a climate pact that will come into force in 2020. Any later and the costs of mitigating climate change will soar exponentially because there will then be so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

UK economist Sir Nicholas Stern said: "All political leaders should recognise that a powerful case has been presented for accelerating action against climate change by building cleaner and more efficient economies."Dr Stephan Singer, WWF director of global energy policy, added: "Renewable energy can no longer be considered a niche market. Renewables must – and should – eventually take the full share of the global energy market within the next few decades."

Man avoids prosecution after paying back £43,000-worth of train fares

London Bridge station. The man, described as a hedge fund manager, has retained his anonymity as result of making the extraordinary payment to Southeastern. Photograph: Velar Grant/Demotix/Corbis

A commuter who was alleged to have dodged train fares to London worth close to £43,000 has avoided prosecution after making an out-of-court-settlement with Southeastern railways.

The man, who kept his anonymity as a result of offering to make the extraordinary payment, travelled for five years from a rural station in East Sussex into London Bridge only paying £7.20 for his journey by exploiting a loophole in the Oyster card system, Southeastern discovered.

He was described as a City executive by the Sunday Times, although Southeastern could not confirm or deny that.

The commuter is said to be a senior executive and boarded the train at Stonegate station in the High Weald, close to the villages of Ticehurst, Wallcrouch and Burwash. There is no barrier at the station so he could board without being detected. Southeastern said it did not know how he managed to avoid detection by ticket inspectors on the train itself.

"There seems to be one law for the rich and one law for the poor when it comes to criminal prosecution," said Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA union which represents railway workers. "The rich seem to be able to walk away and claim secrecy while the poor get hauled up in front of the local magistrates court and publicly ridiculed. This guy can buy silence, but that isn't offered to most people who are caught fare dodging."

Suspicions were raised last autumn when a ticket inspector at Cannon Street station in London noticed he had paid the £7.20 fare incurred by passengers who fail to tap in. Further investigation revealed that he was on Southeastern's database of season ticket holders but he had stopped buying a season ticket in 2008. When he applied for a new season ticket shortly after being challenged, suspicions grew.

"It suggested to our investigators that he hadn't been buying anything," said Rupert Atterbury Thomas, a spokesman for Southeastern. "When our revenue team calculated the cost he made an offer which is the £43,000 and he settled on it. There has been no admission of any sort of guilt."

The payout was calculated on the basis of single fares. This meant the settlement cost him £20,000 more than if he had bought season tickets. The train company defended the decision not to prosecute.

"[Out-of-court settlement] is something that people have a right to do in this country," said Atterbury Thomas. "The punishment is the big amount of money. Fare dodging is something we take very seriously to protect the proceeds of everybody else's tickets. We are rigorous in making sure we catch the people who dodge the fare."

Fare evasion over a long period of time is often treated as fraud and cases are normally handed to the British Transport police. Nationwide, the crime costs train operators about £210m a year, according toconservative estimates made by the Association of Train Operating Companies.

The City manager from Sussex is not the only executive to avoid prosecution. Gray Hooper Holt, a law firm which specialises in fare evasion cases, last year acted for a "professional financier" who was accused of fare evasion and giving a false address by First Capital Connect. The case was dropped after the lawyers intervened, enabling the financier to avoid a criminal record. In another case in 2012 the firm acted for "a senior financial adviser for an international company for whom a successful prosecution for railway fare evasion or fraud would have led to the loss of his job and his career". He was accused by Greater Anglia railways but the parties reached "an informal settlement".

GPs' surgeries to open all hours in £50m reforms

The GP Access Fund will mean that patients at 1,147 practices across England will be able to see their doctor outside normal working hours. Photograph: Ferenczy Europress/FEB

Millions of patients will be able to see their GPs in evenings and on weekends with £50m of government funding made available to extend opening times, it is to be announced.

David Cameron will say on Monday that more than 7.5 million people will be offered increased access to GP services through extended opening times and new consultation methods using Skype, email and phone.

The £50m GP Access Fund will mean that patients at 1,147 GP practices across England will be able to see their family doctor outside normal working hours, including late-night and weekend appointments or use one of the modern consultation tools for convenience.

It was originally thought that around 500,000 people would benefit from the changes but due to high levels of interest it has been rolled out to cover more GP services.

Cameron will also announce plans to enhance care services for elderly people.

About 800,000 people over the age of 75 and those with more serious health complaints will get tailored care, co-ordinated by just one local GP.

The health minister, Norman Lamb, told the Telegraph: "It's very difficult for people with busy lives to get appointments with GPs so let's just get smarter with the use of technology."

He said: "We have got to break away from this treadmill of the 10-minute appointment which drives GPs crazy and which leaves patients often frustrated."

Lamb added that as older people became more tech-savvy, the use of email and video chat would help people who were too busy to attend face-to-face consultations.

'Delay, delay, delay': Northern Ireland Troubles inquests still outstanding

A British paratrooper takes a teenager from the crowd during Bloody Sunday in 1972. Photograph: Getty Images

Inquests into more than 70 killings during Northern Ireland's Troubles have still to be concluded, owing to delays that are causing anger among relatives of the dead and raising concerns about the ability of coroners courts to cope with the conflict's legacy.

The unfinished inquests stretch back decades and largely concern gunshot killings by police and troops in circumstances that are bitterly disputed, or killings by paramilitaries suspected of having links with the security forces.

The average time families have waited for a conclusion to adjourned inquests is 20 years and seven months. Many of the reopened inquests waiting to be heard concern deaths that occcurred as far back as 1971. The majority of the cases have not led to prosecutions.

Coroners and lawyers representing the families of the dead have complained about repeated failures by lawyers representing the police and Ministry of Defence to disclose documentation that would allow the inquests to be completed.

The families, who are mostly nationalists, say hearings are being delayed to conceal the truth about the killings.

Unionist politicians and retired police officers, meanwhile, say they fear the inquest system is being manipulated in the service of a new narrative of Northern Ireland's past in which killings by paramilitaries are overlooked, and the difficulties and dangers once faced by the security forces are largely forgotten.

What is not disputed is that 16 years after the Good Friday peace agreement was struck, 46 inquests into the killings of 74 people remain outstanding in Northern Ireland.

About half the inquests were opened shortly after the deaths happened but were adjourned and never concluded, while half were reopened in recent years on the orders of John Larkin QC, the attorney general of Northern Ireland, following complaints that the original hearings were fundamentally unfair.

Northern Ireland's senior coroner, John Leckey, has expressed exasperation at the length of time some inquests are taking.

Comparing the time taken to conclude some cases from the Troubles with the inquests into the 7/7 London bombings and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, he said in February: "Looking at how difficult inquests have been held in England, I feel embarrassed."

Mark Thompson, director of Relatives for Justice, a non-governmental organisation that works with many of the families, believes police are determined that some of the key documentation about the killings should never see the light of day. "It's initially a case of deny, deny, deny, then delay, delay, delay," he said.

Last year a judge at the European court of human rights said that police and soldiers responsible for killings in Northern Ireland could "benefit from virtual impunity" because of the length of the delays.

Meanwhile, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a Belfast-based human rights group, said: "We retain concerns about protracted delays by the security forces in disclosing information, and limitations on the inquest system itself."

In particular, the organisation said, the law that prevents inquests in Northern Ireland from recording unlawful killings and requires jury verdicts to be unanimous, needs urgent remedy. Without an unlawful killing verdict, many families hoped for forceful narrative verdicts.

The delayed inquests include the decision about the death of Roseanne Mallon, 76, shot dead in May 1994 by a Loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force gunman while she was sitting on a settee at her-sister-in-law's home in Tyrone.

The inquest began eight years after her death but was adjourned more than 20 times over the following two years as lawyers representing her family tried to discover more about two army surveillance cameras overlooking the scene.

The lawyers in this case also faced problems as they tried to get information from the MoD about six soldiers who had been hiding nearby and who said they were ordered not to react to the shooting. The inquest was reopened again last year, then adjourned until next month, the 20th anniversary of her death.

Six of the delayed inquests concern the deaths in 1982 of Republican paramilitaries allegedly shot dead when they could have been arrested.

The deaths are said to have happened owing to the "shoot-to-kill" policy that was later investigated by John Stalker, deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester. His report (completed after he was removed from the inquiry in controversial circumstances) has never been made public, and the reluctance of government lawyers to disclose it to the dead men's solicitors is said to have added to delays.

The reopened inquests include five that will examine the shooting dead of 10 people in Ballymurphy, west Belfast, during two days of disturbances triggered by the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971. One of those who died was a priest shot while giving the last rites to a young man; another was a 50-year-old mother of eight, shot in the face from a distance of about 200 metres.

Five months later, on Bloody Sunday, soldiers from the same unit, the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, shot dead 13 people and wounded 13 others, one fatally, in Derry.

Another reopened inquest is to look again at the deaths of 10 Protestant workmen who were lined up against their van and mown down by gunmen in January 1976. The killings were claimed by a group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force; a renewed police inquiry concluded in 2011 the IRA was responsible.

This month, at one Belfast coroner's court, a series of opened and adjourned hearings briefly touched upon, but did not illuminate, some of the tragic deaths of the Troubles.

Court staff said the schedule was entirely typical. Monday morning began with a brief hearing in the case of Francis Rowntree, 11, who died in April 1972 after being shot in the head by a rubber bullet fired at close range by a soldier.

This case was followed by brief proceedings about Manus Deery, 15, who died in Derry in May 1972, hit by fragments of a bullet fired by an army sniper. He was carrying home his family's fish-and-chip supper.

Next came a brief hearing in the case of a man shot by soldiers during a fracas in a Belfast dance hall in December 1971.

As with other cases, lawyers for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) told the court that officers were busy dealing with other historical cases, and it was unclear when they might find time to locate and disclose files on the killing.

Later that week there was a brief hearing in the case of a teenage member of the IRA who bled to death after being shot in disputed circumstances in Derry in July 1972.

This was followed by a hearing – quickly adjourned – into the deaths of four members of the IRA shot dead by the SAS in County Tyrone in January 1992. Their families' lawyers allege that the way in which they were ambushed amounted to a breach of their right to life under Article 2 of the European convention on human rights.

Further proceedings concerning the 10 Ballymurphy deaths and an Irish National Liberation Army killing from 2004 that had been due to be brought before the court that week, were adjourned without hearings.

While coroners courts in England and Wales conduct hearings that are essentially inquisitorial, some of the proceedings at the Belfast court had an adversarial air about them. In between hearings, lawyers were heard chatting about other inquests: "Ah, that one's been adjourned for another year."

Meanwhile, disquiet about the way in which the inquest system is operating in Northern Ireland is growing.

This year a case at Belfast's high court that heard a litany of complaints about the inquest of an IRA member led to a judgment that could have huge implications for the coroners courts system in Northern Ireland.

After a judicial review of the inquest into the death of Pearse Jordan, who was shot in the back by police in 1992, Mr Justice Stephens found police had "created obstacles and difficulties" that led to the inquest being delayed up to 11 years and had redacted documents so heavily they were left unintelligible.

The judge also said that lawyers for the dead man's family should not have been denied access to the Stalker report, and that coroners should not sit with juries when there is a risk of bias. The coroner and chief constable are appealing against this ruling.

Asked about the views that delays in disclosure of relevant material was causing inquests to drag on for decades, the MoD had no comment.

The PSNI said: "The PSNI is working closely with the coronial service to try to progress these legacy inquests." It would say nothing further.

In a post-conflict society that remains deeply divided, and in which there is no agreement on what happened during the Troubles or why, many unionists say they are uneasy at the prospect of inquests being turned into mini public inquiries at which former soldiers and retired police can be compelled to give evidence, but former paramilitaries cannot.

The Ulster Unionist's position paper on dealing with the past warns that historical inquests "run the risk of establishing a narrative of actions by security force personnel, without a reciprocal narrative concerning terrorist motivation and activity, or any due attention to the security and political context of the time".

The PSNI has been holding "information evenings" to give retired officers advice on giving evidence at inquests.

There is no agreement about how Northern Ireland can confront its past, or even the language that should be used to describe it.

Last week the former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain suggested it was time amnesties were granted to all those who had committed terrorist crimes, but the idea was dismissed by David Cameron and the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, who made the first state visit to Britain by an Irish head of state. He said: "There are a lot of very difficult memories and it would be, to my mind, wrong to suggest to anyone that you should, as it were, wipe the slate clean.

IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe is eminently affordable

The landmark UN report on climate change concludes moving to renewable energy is achievable. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Catastrophic climate change can be averted without sacrificing living standards according to a UN report, which concludes that the transformation required to a world of clean energy is eminently affordable.
“It doesn’t cost the world to save the planet,” said economist Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, who led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) team.

The cheapest and least risky route to dealing with global warming is to abandon all dirty fossil fuels in coming decades, the report found. Gas – including that from the global fracking boom – could be important during the transition, Edenhofer said, but only if it replaced coal burning.

The authoritative report, produced by 1,250 international experts and approved by 194 governments, dismisses fears that slashing carbon emissions would wreck the world economy. It is the final part of a trilogy that has already shown that climate change is “unequivocally” caused by humans and that, unchecked, it poses a grave threat to people and could lead to wars and mass migration.

Diverting hundred of billions of dollars from fossil fuels into renewable energy and cutting energy waste would shave just 0.06% off expected annual economic growth rates of 1.3%-3%, the IPCC report concluded.
“The report is clear: the more you wait, the more it will cost [and] the more difficult it will become,” said EU commissioner Connie Hedegaard. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said: “This report is a wake-up call about global economic opportunity we can seize today as we lead on climate change.”

The UK’s energy and climate secretary, Ed Davey, said: “The [report shows] the tools we need to tackle climate change are available, but international efforts need to significantly increase.”

The IPCC economic analysis did not include the benefits of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which could outweigh the costs. The benefits include reducing air pollution, which plagues China and recently hit the UK, and improved energy security, which is currently at risk in eastern Europe due to the actions of Russia – a large producer of gas – in Ukraine.

The new IPCC report warns that carbon emissions have soared in the last decade and are now growing at almost double the previous rate. But its comprehensive ­analysis found rapid action can still limit global warming to 2C, the internationally agreed safe limit, if low-carbon energy triples or quadruples by 2050.

“It is actually affordable to do it and people are not going to have to sacrifice their aspirations about improved standards of living,” said Professor Jim Skea, an energy expert at Imperial College London and co-chair of the IPCC report team. “It is not a hair shirt change of lifestyle at all that is being envisaged and there is space for poorer countries to develop too,” Skea told the Guardian.

Nonetheless, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change at the lowest cost, the report envisages an energy revolution ending centuries of dominance by fossil fuels – which will require significant political and commercial change. On Thursday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for an anti-apartheid style campaign against ­fossil fuel companies, which he blames for the “injustice” of climate change.

Friends of the Earth’s executive director, Andy Atkins, said: “Rich nations must take the lead by rapidly weaning themselves off coal, gas and oil and funding low-carbon growth in poorer countries.”

Along with measures that cut energy waste, renewable energy – such as wind, hydropower and solar – is viewed most favourably by the report as a result of its falling costs and large-scale deployment in recent years.

The report includes nuclear power as a mature low-carbon option, but cautions that it has declined globally since 1993 and faces safety, financial and waste-management concerns. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – trapping the CO2 from coal or gas burning and then burying it – is also included, but the report notes it is an untested technology on a large scale and may be expensive.

Biofuels, used in cars or power stations, could play a “critical role” in cutting emissions, the IPCC found, but it said the negative effects of some biofuels on food prices and wildlife remained unresolved.

The report found that current emission-cutting pledges by the world’s nations make it more likely than not that the 2C limit will be broken and it warns that delaying action any further will increase the costs.

Delay could also force extreme measures to be taken including sucking CO2 out of the air.

This might be done by generating energy by burning plants and trees, which had absorbed carbon from the atmosphere, and then using CCS to bury the emissions. But the IPCC warned such warned such carbon removal technologies may never be developed and could bring new risks.

“This is a very responsible report,” said Professor Andrew Watson, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Exeter who was not part of the IPCC team. He said there were economic and social risks in transforming the energy system to cut carbon. “However, there are even bigger risks if we do nothing and rely exclusively on being able to ride out climate change and adapt to it.”

Environmental campaign groups, which have previously criticised the IPCC for being too conservative, welcomed the new report. WWF’s Samantha Smith said: “The IPCC report makes clear that acting on emissions now is affordable, but delaying further increases the costs. It is a super strong signal to [fossil fuel] investors: they can no longer say they did not know the risks.”

Kaisa Kosonen, at Greenpeace International, said: “Renewable energy is unstoppable. It’s becoming bigger, better and cheaper every day. Dirty energy industries are sure to put up a fight but it’s only a question of time before public pressure and economics dictate that they either change or go out of business.”

UN ambassador: Ukraine unrest has 'tell-tale signs of Moscow's involvement'

Activists at a seized police station with a banner reading 'Donetsk Republic' in Slovyansk. Photograph: Andrew Chernavsky/AP

Ukrainian forces engaged in a deadly gun battle with unknown armed men in the country’s eastern region on Sunday, prompting a senior US diplomat to accuse Moscow of staging another Crimea-style intervention.

Later in the day, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement on Facebook which said: “It now particularly depends on the west to avoid a civil war in Ukraine.”

Samantha Power, the United States' ambassador to the United Nations, said the unrest in eastern Ukraine was following the same pattern of events as in Crimea, where unidentified forces took over government installations before the peninsula was effectively annexed by Russia last month.

“It’s professional, it’s co-ordinated, there is nothing grass-roots-seeming about it,” Power said. “The forces are doing, in each of the six or seven cities they’ve been active in, exactly the same thing. Certainly it bears the tell-tale signs of Moscow’s involvement.”

Asked if Russian president Vladimir Putin “wants eastern Ukraine”, Power told ABC’s This Week: “I think the actions that he is undertaking certainly give credence to that idea.

“I will say that in the conversations that we’re having, they [the Russian government] keep insisting ‘No, that’s not what we want.' But everything they’re doing suggests the opposite.”

Washington and Moscow have maintained regular dialogue throughout the crisis and on Saturday John Kerry, the US secretary of state, spoke by telephone to Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

A senior State Department official said Kerry expressed strong concern that attacks by “armed militants” in eastern Ukraine had been “orchestrated and synchronised”, echoing the unrest in Crimea.

“Militants were equipped with specialised Russian weapons and the same uniforms as those worn by the Russian forces that invaded Crimea,” the official said. “The secretary made clear that if Russia did not take steps to de-escalate in eastern Ukraine and move its troops back from Ukraine’s border, there would be additional consequences.”

Sunday's Russian foreign ministry statement said “western sponsors” of the interim government in Kiev, “and also the US behind them”, “must keep their wards under control”.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki moon, called for urgent dialogue, saying he was “deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in eastern Ukraine and the growing potential for violent clashes”.

In the first exchange of gunfire in eastern Ukraine since armed protestersbegan seizing control of government buildings, at least one security officer was killed and five others wounded in Slovyansk, around 100 miles from the Russian border.

The gun battle occurred after the Kiev government announced what it called an "anti-terrorist operation" to turf out pro-Russian forces who, a day earlier, took over a police station and a security office in the city. Government buildings in several other towns in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were attacked over the weekend, with armed men bedding in behind barricades.

Analysts fear that a descent into violence will provide Putin with cover for a more intervention in Ukraine, possibly involving a military incursion by some of the 40,000 troops Nato estimates have amassed across the border.

In Crimea, Russian forces from a naval base on the peninsula were used to cement Moscow's control after armed groups and unidentified militia took over key sites, including airports.

Details of the fatal exchange of bullets in Slovyansk were sketchy. On Sunday, several journalists reported that armed and camouflaged men were guarding checkpoints on the outskirts of the city. Interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov has guaranteed amnesty to separatists who surrender, and announced a "full-scale, anti-terror operation".

An Associated Press reporter found a bullet-ridden SUV on the side of the road where the gun battle was supposed to have taken place. There was a pool of blood on the passenger seat. Vladimir Kolodchenko, a lawmaker from the area who witnessed the attack, told the news agency a car containing four gunmen pulled up on the road in a wooded area outside Slovyansk and opened fire on Ukrainian soldiers who were standing beside their vehicles.

A gunman stands guard at a seized police station in Slovyansk. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

There were outbursts of violence elsewhere in eastern Ukraine. In Kramatorsk, there were reports of gunfire as men in unidentified uniforms seized the police station. Video footage showed around 20 men in military fatigues shooting from automatic rifles as they approached the building. Reuters cited an eyewitness who described a shootout with police.

Sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and western allies have so far been restricted to visa bans and asset freezes targeting senior officials in Moscow. However, Washington has repeatedly warned that such measures could be expanded against Russia’s banking, energy and mining sectors.

Any such sanctions would also however prove damaging to Europe’s economy and increase the prospects of a “gas war” in which Moscow could disrupt energy supplies across the continent.

This week could see the first four-way talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US since the crisis in Ukraine began. The proposed talks have been touted by Moscow as evidence of its willingness to engage in dialogue over Ukraine.

But with unrest appearing to reach a crescendo, it is unclear whether the meeting will take place. On Friday, two days after the potential talks were announced, the State Department said no meeting had been finalised.

The White House did announce over the weekend that the vice-president, Joe Biden, will travel to Kiev later this month in a show of solidarity with the country’s new government, which is planning presidential elections in May.

Biden will be the most senior US official to travel to Ukraine since violent protests led to the ouster of its pro-Russian president, Victor Yanukovych.

Manchester United plan final round of Evra contract talks

The France international, whose current deal expires in the summer, is being lined up by the likes of Inter and Monaco but David Moyes is keen for the left-back to stay put

Manchester United plan to sit down with Patrice Evra next week for a final round of contract talks, Goalunderstands.

The France international left-back is out of contract in the summer, with United planning to offer a slight increase on his £85,000-a-week deal with the promise of an annual rolling review in an attempt to convince him to stay.

David Moyes's pursuit of Everton defender Leighton Baines last summer appeared to suggest that the Scot did not see a long-term future for the 32-year-old at Old Trafford.

But with Baines deciding to commit his future to the Merseysiders by signing a new deal back in January, the former Everton boss has seemingly had a change of heart and wants Evra to remain at the club.

A United source told Goal: "Moyes is keen to keep Evra beyond the summer but, out of respect for his service to the club, will not stand in his way should he decide that he doesn't want to extend his current deal.

"And despite what has been portrayed in the media, Evra's team-mates remain convinced that he wants to stay and help Moyes through this difficult period in charge of the club."

Goal understands that Inter remain favourites to sign Evra, while Monaco retain an interest in bringing the defender back to France as they continue to build a squad capable of challenging for honours domestically and in Europe.

Should the Frenchman decide to stay at Old Trafford, United's pursuit of Southampton sensation Luke Shaw could have a significant impact on how regularly Moyes uses the 32-year-old next season.

The north west club are expected to be party to a three-way battle to sign the England World Cup hopeful in the summer, with Manchester City and Chelsea also keen on the defender.

Evra, who scored a sensational goal in the Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich, has made 30 league appearances for United this season although his agent's insistence that "things have changed" at the club has done little to reassure supporters that he is planning to stay put.