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Army push on with offensive in bid to regain control of Zinjibar, a key town in the south of the country

Fresh clashes between al-Qaida fighters and government forces in Yemen left 17 dead, military officials have said, as the army pushed on with an offensive to regain a key town in the country's south that fell to the militants over a year ago.

Officials said eight al-Qaida fighters, four soldiers and five civilian volunteers fighting alongside the military were killed.

The army started a two-pronged attack on the town of Jaar on Friday as part of a broader assault to take back Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan, which has been also under al-Qaida control for more than a year.

Al-Qaida-linked fighters took advantage of the 2011 uprising to overrun a swath of territory and several towns in the south, pushing out government forces and establishing their own rule. In recent weeks, the army has launched a concerted effort to uproot the militants from their strongholds, and is closely coordinating with a small contingent of US troops who are helping to guide the operations from inside Yemen.

Officials say US drones have been providing information to their forces.

The military officials said Yemeni warplanes pounded targets some three miles outside Jaar. Up to 70 percent of the town's residents have fled over the past months to escape the fighting.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the militants used suicide car bombs against military checkpoints and vehicles to hinder the army's advance and had called for reinforcements from neighbouring towns.

Yemen's new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, took office in February as part of a US- and Saudi-backed deal aimed at ending the unrest. He has made fighting al-Qaida one of his top priorities.

The official news agency Saba said that Ken Tovo, a US commanding general of special operations, met with Yemen's chief of staff Ahmed Ali al-Ashwal and discussed US aid to Yemen in combating terrorism.

Tovo later met with the commander of the Yemeni southern sector in Aden to discuss details of the operations in the south, a military statement said.

Meanwhile Yemen's defence minister, who is directly supervising the operations in the south, paid a 24-hour visit to Saudi Arabia.

A government official said Yemen was seeking military hardware aid from Saudi Arabia to enable it to keep up the momentum of the operations against al-Qaida.

The party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh said he has been admitted to a hospital for regular checkups and minor procedures.

The statement by the General People's Congress did not provide further details or say to which hospital Saleh was admitted.

Saleh had spent time in Saudi Arabia and the US earlier this year for medical treatment for wounds sustained in a June assassination attempt. Saleh stepped down in February and was replaced by his deputy, Hadi.

But Hadi and other political groups have complained that Saleh, the country's ruler for 33 years, has continued to play a behind-the-scenes role in local affairs, impeding the new president's efforts to implement a reform program.

• Yemen
• Middle East and North Africa
• Arab and Middle East unrest

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Scheme will offer guarantee to all children on free school meals that they will be financially supported through higher education

Nick Clegg is to return to the issue of university funding for poor students, the scene of his greatest political anguish, by proposing a student premium designed to guarantee financial help for all children on free school meals entering higher education. It is likely to be worth about £2,500 a year.

The scheme draws on the lessons of the pupil premium for children on free schools meals in schools, and is designed to give children from poor families a guarantee that if they make it to university they will be financially supported by the state. Ministers insist this is not a simple rebranding of existing help, and the guarantee to poor students represents a re-engineering of the currently haphazard system that will boost aspiration. The idea is part of a new social mobility review due to be published on Tuesday which is billed as central to Clegg's political thinking.

Clegg's decision to sanction the trebling of student fees led to a major backbench revolt and has soured his relationship with large parts of the electorate. In the midst of the furore , which was in breach of a manifesto promise, Clegg made passing reference to a student premium, but it was thought the idea was a panic-stricken response to the political crisis, and was not subsequently developed.

Liberal Democrat thinking is that children even at primary school age are thinking about their future education, and by providing an earlier guarantee of funding, the aspiration of poorer students will be boosted. A lack of aspiration is seen as one of the biggest barriers to poor children going on to higher education.

The aim will be to guarantee the student premium to any secondary school child on free school meals who passes the English baccalaureate and secures an offer of a place at university. Students would know at least two years before applying to university that money would be available to help them so long as they attain certain grades and the money could come in the form of a fee waiver or a bursary. The baccalaureate is given to pupils who have secured a C grade or better across a core of academic subjects – English, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and a language.

The social mobility paper will for the first time publish figures showing the disparity in performance between state and independent children at A-level. Across the 2010-11 year group, 7% of state school students achieved two As and a B, compared to 23.1% among their counterparts in the independent sector. Two years before, the gap was even wider with only 5.8% of state school pupils getting AAB compared to 22.3% at independent schools.

Clegg will outline efforts to narrow that gap. "Education is critical to our hopes of a fairer society. Right now there is a great rift in our education system between our best schools, most of which are private, and the schools ordinary families rely on. That is corrosive for our society and damaging to our economy, " he intends to say. "I don't for a moment denigrate the decision of any parent to do their best for their child, and to choose the best school for them. Indeed, that aspiration on behalf of children is one of the most precious ingredients of parenthood.

"But we do need to ensure that our school system as a whole promotes fairness and mobility, that heals the rift in opportunities."

As part of the trebling of the cap on university fees to £9,000, ministers reinforced a range of measures to reduce the cost of going to university for poor students such as reducing or minimising the cost of loan repayment.

The national scholarship programme worth £100m this year is due to rise to £150m by 2014-15, with matched funding pound for pound from universities aimed at helping mainly new students . This cash is available to students whose parents' income is below £25,000 and assuming matched funding can be worth up to £6,000. Separately the higher funding education council for England provides up to £150m to help disadvantaged children, but often students do not know the size of the grant they will receive until they arrive at university.

A government source said; "There is quite a lot of funding available in the system, but it is not available until very late on so we want children and families to get earlier line of sight of what is on offer and to guarantee it".

The social mobility white paper – a review of progress on a similar paper a year ago – may also push the boundaries of the thorny debate on the extent to which universities can take account of background in deciding on allocation of places.

The issue led to an attempt by Conservatives to block the appointment of Les Ebdon to be director of the Office for Fair Access. The higher education minister David Willetts has stressed universities must be autonomous bodies even though their ability to charge higher fees is subject to an agreement to provide fair access arrangements for poorer students.

Willetts has also said grades need not be the only indicator, suggesting admission "can be based on more than just A-level results, by looking at all the information that indicates the potential of an individual to succeed." That can include their relative performance at school.

A survey by SPA (the supporting professionalism in admissions programme) last year showed that almost a quarter of universities were planning to offer lower grades to 2012 applicants from poor schools or deprived backgrounds.

The social mobility paper will have to face the challenge that the government will not meet the child poverty target, a target of relative inequality by the proposed deadline of 2020. Ministers are looking at a range of additional life chance targets, such as birth weight and parenting.

• Education policy
• Nick Clegg
• Students
• Secondary schools
• School meals
• English baccalaureate
• Schools
• Liberal Democrats
• Student finance
• Higher education
• Children

Patrick Wintour
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One of the three brothers who hit the high notes in disco hits as the Bee Gees

Robin Gibb, who has died aged 62, was one of the three brothers who made up the international chart-topping group the Bee Gees. They were best known for their disco hits of the 1970s, which included Stayin' Alive, Night Fever and Jive Talkin', but enjoyed success in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. Robin also charted intermittently as a solo artist. He released six solo albums between 1970 and 2006, and scored a British No 1 single as recently as 2009 with a new version of the Bee Gees' song Islands in the Stream, for Comic Relief.

He was born on the Isle of Man, twin brother of Maurice, and son of Barbara, a former singer, and Hugh Gibb, a bandleader. The family moved to Chorlton, Manchester, in the 1950s. Robin, Maurice and their older brother, Barry, took to music early and made their first appearances onstage as a between-shows act at cinemas, in Manchester, in 1955. In 1958 the family moved to Brisbane, Australia, where the trio performed as the Brothers Gibb. They were given their own local TV show and changed their name to the BGs, which later became Bee Gees, and in 1962 signed to Festival records.

"We wanted to make music all our lives and it evolved to a point where the only people who could understand that were the three of us," Robin said. "We didn't feel comfortable with anybody but ourselves. The three of us were like one person."They had begun writing their own material, but suffered a string of flops before finally achieving a modest hit with Wine and Women. In late 1966, well aware of the pop-music boom happening in Britain, they moved back to their original homeland. Ironically, their song Spicks and Specks then topped the Australian charts. Meanwhile, they impressed Robert Stigwood, a pop entrepreneur who had become a partner in the Beatles manager Brian Epstein's Nems organisation. Stigwood became their manager, and, in 1967, the trio scored their first international hit with New York Mining Disaster 1941, which made No 12 in the UK and No 4 in the US.

This launched a string of memorable pop ballads, including To Love Somebody, Massachusetts (their first UK chart-topper) and Words. They made their debut album, Bee Gees 1st, in 1967, followed by Horizontal and Idea, which they also produced.

Not long after returning to England, Robin met Molly Hullis, who worked at Nems, and became his first wife. Both of them were involved in the Hither Green train crash in south-east London in November 1967. "I just wanted to escape," said Robin. "At the same time I made a mental decision that it wasn't going to affect my life, so I shut it out."

The Bee Gees made rapid commercial progress, but this was suddenly halted during the making of their 1969 double-LP, Odessa. There had already been rivalry between Robin and Barry over which of them was lead vocalist. Now, after an argument over whether Robin's Lamplight or Barry's First of May should become the A-side of their next single, Robin walked out on his brothers and set about recording the solo album Robin's Reign, on which he wrote, produced and sang all the material. It resulted in the 1969 hit Saved By the Bell. Meanwhile, the other two singers made the next Bee Gees album, Cucumber Castle, before following Robin into solo work. The influence of fame, drugs and money had had a corrosive effect on fraternal harmony.

In 1970, the brothers realised that they were stronger together and reformed the Bee Gees, even though Robin had almost completed a second album, Sing Slowly Sisters. The reunited trio released the hit singles Lonely Days and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (the latter a US No 1), but failed to gain much commercial traction with a string of albums. They began to find a new direction with Mr Natural (1974), produced by the illustrious Arif Mardin and leaning towards an American R&B sound.

The follow-up, Main Course (1975), featured ingredients that would soon make the Bee Gees one of the world's biggest acts – dance rhythms, high harmonies, and Barry's remarkable falsetto singing. They achieved another American No 1 with Jive Talkin', then more success with Nights on Broadway and the album Children of the World.

In 1977, Stigwood asked the trio for some songs for the soundtrack of a movie he was producing about the disco scene in Brooklyn, Saturday Night Fever. The project gave the Bee Gees three monster hits with Stayin' Alive, Night Fever and How Deep Is Your Love, while the parent album sold 30m copies. Robin consequently appeared on the Sesame Street Fever album (1978), in which the popular television puppets parodied the disco hits successfully enough to earn a gold disc.

Though the Bee Gees scored another platinum album with Spirits Having Flown (1979), and also fared well with the soundtrack to the limp Saturday Night Fever sequel, Stayin' Alive, a post-Fever hangover set in as disco reached saturation point. The Bee Gees filed a $200m lawsuit against Stigwood for alleged mismanagement that was settled out of court. Barry pursued side projects with Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick, while the three brothers wrote Islands in the Stream (1983) for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, and Chain Reaction (1985) for Diana Ross – both were huge successes.

The Bee Gees would bounce back in the late 80s with the albums ESP and One, but meanwhile Robin stepped up his solo work, releasing the albums How Old Are You? (1983), Secret Agent (1984)and Walls Have Eyes (1985). He enjoyed moderate chart success with Secret Agent in Europe but made little impact in the UK or the US, with the exception of the 1984 single Boys Do Fall in Love, which made the US top 40.

He did not release another album until Magnet in January 2003, which, by bleak coincidence, appeared in the same week that Maurice died (their younger brother Andy, also a huge pop star in the US, had died of myocarditis aged 30 in 1988). After Maurice's death, Barry and Robin disbanded the Bee Gees.

In 2004, Robin released two versions of the 1997 Bee Gees song My Lover's Prayer as a double A-sided single, which reached No 5 in the UK. A year later, Robin and Barry appeared together as part of the One World Project to record Grief Never Grows Old, a charity single for Asian tsunami relief. In 2005, Robin appeared on stage at the Albert Hall in London with X Factor runners-up G4 and sang the Bee Gees song First of May. 

In 2006, he released Robin Gibb – My Favourite Carols, which included a new composition by him called Mother of Love, inspired by Maurice. In 2008, he appeared in a 30th-anniversary stage presentation of Saturday Night Fever at the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse in north London. His collaboration with Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon and Tom Jones on the Comic Relief version of Islands in the Stream took him back to the top of the charts in 2009.

In 2010, he underwent surgery for a blocked intestine, and continuing health problems forced him to cancel several concerts and a tour of Brazil. In November 2011, it was revealed that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer.

He was made a CBE in 2002. Robin Gibb is survived by his second wife, Dwina, whom he married in 1985, and their son Robin-John, with whom he wrote The Titanic Requiem, which premiered last month; by his children Spencer and Melissa from his first marriage; by his daughter Snow Robin, by Claire Yang; and by Barry.

• Robin Hugh Gibb, singer, born 22 December 1949; died 20 May 2012

• Bee Gees
• United States

Adam Sweeting
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Guto Harri intends to use the post to 'combat hysteria', but move may reignite claims of Murdoch-Tory links

A key former aide to Boris Johnson, the London mayor, has been appointed as head of News International's communications team to help the beleaguered media company restore its reputation in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.

The decision to appoint Guto Harri, a former BBC political correspondent who had served as Johnson's director of external affairs for four years until less than two weeks ago and was widely seen as the Tory mayor's most trusted adviser, will surprise many at a time when the close relationship between senior Tories and News Corporation has become a source of embarrassment for David Cameron.

Harri confirmed that he had turned down offers from a "luxury manufacturing company and a large public affairs firm" in favour of working for News International, a company he praised as delivering "first class journalism" and whose staff, he believes, have been unfairly tarnished because of a "few rotten apples".

Harri, a Welsh speaker born in Cardiff, said he was "totally reconciled" that his move to News International, after four years with Johnson, would be seen in the media as "part of an irresistible geometrical pattern" between the Conservatives and News International.

Harri's appointment at News International comes five years after he narrowly missed out on becoming David Cameron's director of communications when the then Tory opposition leader opted to give the job to Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World. Coulson quit the Downing Street post last year amid pressure about phone hacking at the newspaper on his watch.

Harri joined Johnson at city hall in May 2008 after being one of the Conservative mayor's first appointments on winning office.He said he had never been a card carrying member of the Conservatives or any other political party. "So I'm not a senior Tory who is suddenly jumping ship choosing, you know, 'one evil man over another'."

In his new job, which starts on Monday, Harri said he intended to "combat some of the hysteria that is rife in British public life". "Not every politician is corrupt, not every banker gets an enormous bonus and doesn't think they give a monkey's for anything, and not everyone who works at News International was involved in phone hacking," he said.

He added: "I know very good people who write for the Times and for the Sun and they are first class journalists and they are very decent people and again one of the reasons why I am more than happy, I'm delighted to take the job, is that those people cannot be tarred with the same soggy brush as just a few people who were either involved in criminal activity, which is a matter for the courts, or you know, were seemingly out of control."

Harri was head of Johnson's media operation when the mayor dismissed allegations of widespread phone hacking at News International as politically motivated "codswallop" in September 2010. He insists this was just Johnson's own colourful way of repeating the "cold blooded advice" he received at the time from the former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police John Yates.

Harri, who spent 18 years as a journalist and did a brief stint in public relations before joining Johnson in city hall, said he was first approached for the NI job by a headhunting firm over Christmas but made it clear he had no intention of leaving Johnson until he was re-elected this month.

He said no one in Conservative circles had sought to dissuade him from taking up his role at News International in the light of the continuing revelations about the party's close links to the media firm, saying he had confided in only a handful of friends.

"Boris was more preoccupied with preventing me leaving city hall than trying to dictate to me where I should choose to ... the only issue for him was whether I was at city hall or not, it's my professional choice for better or worse to choose one company over another."

Harri, a married father of three, replaces Andrew Honnor, who held the position in an interim capacity, and will answer directly to NI's chief executive, Tom Mockridge, to whom Harri paid tribute on the eve of joining the company for his handling of the phone-hacking scandal.

"I would not be joining this company myself if I thought that they condoned, and were actively involved in, any of the practices that they have rightly been condemned for and I cannot think that the people I have met and the man I will be reporting to is I think without doubt the person most determined to clean up any lingering odour of bad practices.

"I cannot think of any company in history – and this does go to the very top from the man himself in New York – that spends millions of pounds employing people to trawl the bowels of their own servers in order to find evidence to hand over to the police to actually convict their own staff.

"They are being extremely robust and arguably brutal about cleansing up the past, and they are not only disciplining people internally, they are handing over evidence to the police."

Speaking just before flying to New York on Sunday evening for a two-day visit to company headquarters, Harri dismissed the findings of the Commons culture and media select committee, which concluded this month that Rupert Murdoch was "not fit to run an international company", as a "political point-scoring exercise" by the Labour members on the committee.

Harri, who is expected to meet Murdoch during his trip, said: "If he's not fit to run a company than I'm sure the board or the shareholders would have something to say about that, and they didn't. Share prices went up that week and the board gave its unanimous support for him."

In a swipe at Tom Watson, a Labour member of the culture and media committee and a vocal critic of News International and its parent company, Harri said: "Let's call it exactly what it was, is a political point-scoring exercise that was not endorsed by the Conservatives on the committee so it was not the view. Select committees rightly carry weight when they give all-party consensus on the basis of a near-judicial or near-professional judgment call. This was not that. This was a very effective Labour politician harnessing the committee and the opposition majority upon it to make a statement that was disowned by the Conservatives on the committee."

Harri was speaking at his west London home in a room where a crate of Châteauneuf du Pape was stored, sent as a private joke by Johnson together with a lengthy thank you note for his four years of service.

Harri said he never doubted that Johnson would win a second term as mayor, but in a veiled swipe at election strategist Lynton Crosby, who spearheaded Johnson's re-election campaign, he said he believed Johnson's majority of fewer than 63,000 votes could have been a more comfortable win if the campaign had not chosen to take the "bubbles out of the champagne".

"It's fair to say that Boris came across in the campaign as a little less charismatic, a little less broadminded and a little less attractive even than the Boris most of London has seen over the past four years."

Harri hinted at a difference of opinion over strategy which saw the mayor appeal to the core Tory vote during the seven weeks of the election period after four years of work to make him attractive to people "who generally would not vote Conservative". This had involved authentically "pitching out in all directions", from supporting an amnesty for illegal immigrants to engaging with Muslim communities, black churches and the gay community, while at the same time also batting for core Tory issues such as calling for the top rate of tax to be reduced to help the business community in the capital.

"That was almost the danger of the campaign, that he became more Tory at a time when being Tory seemed to be more of a liability than an asset."

While the campaign was "quite right" to focus on Johnson's priorities of creating jobs and growth in the capital "maybe they didn't quite have the confidence in Boris that I have that the more people see the real Boris, the more they like him, not the other way around."

Harri paid tribute to the campaign for its "enormous energy and commitment" and to Crosby personally for being a "strategic and logistical genius", but goes on to say that while he has "huge respect for the core Tory vote, it's not enough to win an election".

"In the end Lynton Crosby is extremely experienced and capable and has fought elections all over the world and you can't deny that he has been campaign manager twice now and Boris has been re-elected so I pay tribute to his enormous skills, but I still think that Boris was undersold. It's not that the core things they focused on are not important, it's just not there are other things that are important to."

• News International
• Boris Johnson
• Newspapers & magazines
• London
• Local politics

Hélène Mulholland
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Surprise victory of former hardline nationalist over incumbent Boris Tadic could delay Serbia's accession to EU

Serbia's hopes of fast-track integration into Europe suffered a severe setback when President Boris Tadic was voted out of office in a victory for a more nationalist rival in the latest European election to kick out an incumbent.

With most of the vote counted, Tomislav Nikolic, a former strident nationalist, took the presidency from the pro-western Tadic by two to three percentage points.

The outcome confounded the pre-election opinion polls and expectations in Brussels, and could also condemn Serbia to a period of political paralysis, with a rightwing president "cohabiting" with a centre-left-dominated government. Parliamentary elections a fortnight ago delivered a mixed verdict, with no clear majorities.

Tadic, the west's preferred candidate, failed to win a third presidential term, but could still become prime minister if his Democratic party cobbles together a parliamentary majority. This would portend endless feuding between the head of state and the head of government.

But Tadic promptly conceded on Sunday night, apparently deciding that the election defeat meant he could not be prime minister. Under Tadic, Belgrade recently won a green light to start the long route to EU membership. It had hoped to begin negotiations later this year.

An early start to talks, however, is now less likely, with Nikolic, a former leading light in an extreme nationalist party headed by a war crimes suspect, less likely to make the concessions on the breakaway country of Kosovo that Brussels will deem necessary for opening negotiations.

"Serbia will keep the EU path but also protect Kosovo. Serbia is a modern country – I will co-operate with everyone," said Nikolic.

Known as "the undertaker" due to an earlier career running a funerals company in central Serbia, the new president-elect, 60, was previously a leading light in the Serbian Radical party, the creation of Vojislav Seselj, a warlord from the 1990s currently on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

In the war years, Nikolic was a keen advocate of "greater Serbia" – the conquest of and incorporation into Serbia of large tracts of Croatia and Bosnia. But he broke away to head his Progressive party, tempered his views, and shifted to the centre-right, committing to membership of the EU. His party and his constituency are nonetheless more critical of the EU and western integration and more open to overtures from Moscow.

In an extraordinary gaffe which was nonetheless prescient, the heads of the European commission and European council, both in Chicago for the Nato summit, issued a statement congratulating Nikolic on his victory three hours before the polls closed.

They retracted the statement, saying: "The EU statement on the results of the Serbian presidential elections will be published later tonight. Please disregard the email notification you received earlier on this topic."

• Serbia
• European Union
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Croatia
• Europe

Ian Traynor
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PM says Greeks have choice in June election between voting to stay in euro and 'effectively voting to leave'

A second Greek vote next month backing parties opposed to the European Union's bailout package would be a decisive vote to leave the euro for which contingency plans have to be made now, David Cameron warned on Sunday in a dramatic raising of the stakes.

Speaking in Chicago after two days of talks with world leaders on the euro crisis, he said: "We now have to send a very clear message to people in Greece: there is a choice – you can either vote to stay in the euro, with all the commitments you've made, or if you vote another way you're effectively voting to leave." His remarks are in effect an attempt to make next month's vote a referendum on continued membership of the euro.

Cameron indicated that he wanted to make the threat of ejection from the euro credible by showing the Greeks that preparations are being made for their departure, a change of tactics after weeks of mixed messages from the European commission on whether such plans are being laid.

It is a piece of high-stakes diplomacy since his threat may either anger Greek voters, driving them into the arms of the radical parties, or act as a sobering warning that the end game is truly imminent and renegotiation of the EU-imposed austerity package is not an option.

Speaking in Chicago after a meeting of G8 world leaders, he said of the Greeks: "They can vote to stay in the eurozone and meet their commitments or they can vote to give up on their commitments and in effect give up on the eurozone.

"I think the point that was very clear from the G8 was that the eurozone has to put in place the most robust contingency plans for both eventualities."

The thinking of eurozone leaders had been crystallised by the two days of talks, he said. "The world is suffering from the continued uncertainty in the eurozone. So this decision point, the Greek election, has got to become the moment where all of the right plans are put in place to secure the future of the eurozone currency, the eurozone economy, and therefore help stabilise the global economy.

"It's not for me to say what Greek parties should and shouldn't stand on and how the Greek elections should work. But it's very important that everyone is clear that the choice Greece faces is maintaining its commitments and maintaining itself in the eurozone, or deciding that is not the path it wants to take. What would be bad for Greece, bad for Europe and bad for the world is if we just allowed the can to be kicked further down the road with an inconclusive outcome. What's required is decisiveness, strong action by all governments. This is a moment of clarity.

"There needs to be a resolution because it's the lack of resolution that's leading to a lack of confidence."

Cameron said he did not want to go into details about the contingency plans already put in place, but the European monetary authorities had a big role. One idea proposed by the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, is for a European system of guarantees for bank deposits, a move that would require a degree of Europe-wide bank co-ordination never before seen.

Greece has about €400bn (£322bn) in external debts, which its government, banks and companies would probably pay only in part or in drachmas. The fear is that a Greek ejection would lead to bank runs across Europe.

Germany also ratcheted up the pressure when the Bundesbank president, Jens Weidmann, warned Europe's central banks not to increase their exposure to Greece because of political uncertainty there before the elections.

The crisis has been exacerbated by the revelation that the Spanish deficit is larger than previously feared, putting extra pressure on its struggling banking sector. Angela Merkel demanded that her Spanish counterpart, Mariano Rajoy, meet her in Chicago on Sunday amid worries that financial markets will turn on Spain after its belated recognition on Friday night that regional governments had blown an extra €4bn hole in last year's budget.

The French president, François Hollande, became the first European leader to suggest the Spanish banks clearly needed fresh capital. "It would surely be necessary that this recapitalisation be done with the European solidarity mechanisms," he said. Rajoy's conservative People's party (PP) government, however, is resisting what it sees as a humiliating move towards European intervention in Spanish banks.

"I can't believe that Mr Hollande said that, because Mr Hollande does not know what is the state of Spanish banks," Rajoy said before his meeting with Merkel on a riverboat in Chicago, where they were attending a Nato leaders' conference. Doubts about Spanish banks, increased by the recent nationalisation of Bankia, will see Rajoy's government name two independent auditors to value their assets on Monday.

EU leaders will meet at an informal dinner on Wednesday to discuss a growth agenda for Europe after Barack Obama said over the weekend that the continent needed something more than a universal austerity package to survive, including a willingness by Germany to do more, either by reflating its demand or by accepting the mutualisation of EU sovereign debt. Obama's own re-election hopes rest on the state of the US economy, and the prospect of months more uncertainty in Europe will do little to boost jobs in the US.

Cameron said: "I have great respect for Angela Merkel. She wants to make sure countries in the eurozone who have signed up to commitments meet those commitments. She's absolutely right to say deficit reduction is an absolutely vital part of getting the European economy back to growth and health.

"I think she did show some flexibility on what more can be done on the growth agenda and what more can be done to handle the risks inside the eurozone. As I say, I think the fact that we got countries like Japan, Canada, America round the table as well as Britain who are outside the eurozone but are affected by what happens inside the eurozone was helpful in bringing that important pressure to bear."

• Eurozone crisis
• Greece
• David Cameron
• G8
• European Union
• European monetary union
• Economics
• Banking
• European banks
• Financial crisis
• Financial sector
• Euro
• Europe
• Euro
• Germany
• Spain

Patrick WintourGiles Tremlett
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TaxPayers' Alliance urges George Osborne to maintain spending cuts until 2020 then usher in 30% single-rate income tax

George Osborne should prolong the coalition's spending cuts by an extra five years to allow for dramatic tax reductions, with a single rate of income tax set at 30%, according to a report by one of Downing Street's favourite thinktanks.

The TaxPayers' Alliance, whose director Matthew Elliott was recently sounded out for a job in No 10, says in its 2020 Tax Commission that tax cuts are vital to promote growth and help hard-pressed families.

The most eye-catching proposal in the 417-page report, which is jointly published by the Taxpayers' Alliance and the Institute of Directors, is a call for a "single proportionate income tax rate" of 30%.

This would be achieved by cutting the ratio of spending and taxation to 33% of national income, forcing Osborne to maintain the current level of spending cuts until 2020.

In his original fiscal mandate, outlined in his emergency budget in June 2010, Osborne had expected the austerity plan to continue until 2015. But in his autumn statement last year Osborne announced that the cuts would be extended for a further two years.

The report by the Taxpayers' Alliance says that a single income tax could be introduced in six steps:

• Cut taxes to 33% of national income. Taxes currently account for 37.5% of national income.

• Ensure that marginal tax rates do not exceed 30% and the personal tax allowance should rise to £10,000.

• Taxes on capital and labour income "disguised" as business taxes should be abolished and replaced with a tax on distributed income.

• Transaction, wealth and inheritance tax should be abolished.

• Consumption taxes should remain for the moment but transport taxes should be cut.

• Local authorities should raise half of their spending power from local taxes.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Right now the government's first priority has to be strong economic growth to create jobs and ease the pressure on families struggling to make ends meet. Tax reform is essential to make that possible. At the same time, the tax system has to be fair, and seen to be fair.

"Our current, complicated tax code where income is too often either taxed repeatedly or not at all doesn't pass that test. The single income tax is a serious plan for a tax system that can restore Britain's economic fortunes and leave more of their money in taxpayers' pockets."

Allister Heath, editor of City AM and chairman of the 2020 Tax Commission, said: "It is time for Britain to make a vital choice between tweaking the status quo and letting our economy continue to be crippled by complex and punitive taxes, and drastically changing course with a radical but realistic plan for a tax system fit for the 21st century.

"The 2020 Tax Commission has set out that plan and would ensure that income is taxed once at a single, much more reasonable, rate. It could create the conditions to establish the UK as a global trading hub, generating renewed prosperity for all those who live and work here. Politicians who are serious about Britain's future need to take it up."

The introduction of a single income tax would have echoes of Osborne's flirtation with a flatter rates of tax. In an interview with Radio 4's Today programme in September 2005, two months after his appointment as shadow chancellor, Osborne said: "I am fully conscious that we may not be able to introduce a pure flat tax, but we may be able to move towards simpler and flatter taxes.

"What I am really talking about is removing a lot of the complexity from the tax system – a lot of the reliefs and exemptions – in return for either a lower rate or a bigger tax allowance. The rest of the world, including many countries in Europe, are reducing taxes."

• Thinktanks
• Tax and spending
• Tax
• George Osborne

Nicholas Watt
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Move signals government's determination to press ahead with replacement programme for Trident nuclear missile system

The government will this week signal its intention to press ahead with a replacement programme for the Trident missile system with the announcement of £350m of contracts to start the initial design for the next generation of nuclear-deterrent submarines.

The announcement does not guarantee a decision in 2016 to go ahead with a full replacement, but it suggests Conservative ministers are keen to send a signal that they are not pulling back from the project.

There have been reports that a Ministry of Defence review led by the Liberal Democrat defence minister Nick Harvey will call for a scaled-down replacement, costing less than the estimated £20bn for a full replacement.

The new submarines are due to come into service in 2028, replacing the Vanguard-class submarines that currently carry the UK's nuclear deterrent. The subs will carry a new nuclear propulsion system that will make the craft more durable and cost-effective.

Government sources said this was "an important step towards renewing our nation's nuclear deterrent into the 2060s". It is expected that the contracts, which will be awarded exclusively to British companies, will sustain and create 1,900 jobs in the UK's submarine-building industry.

The Royal Navy has been operating continuous sea deterrent patrols for more than 40 years and the successor submarines will allow Britain to continue doing so well into the future with cutting-edge equipment.

The Liberal Democrats, though committed to keeping a nuclear deterrent, are examining different options. Instead of spending £20bn rebuilding Trident, they want to investigate whether cheaper alternatives – such as launching a warhead from aircraft or from Astute-class submarines – could be adopted.

The Vanguard submarines cannot be detected at sea and can launch missiles at a range of 6,000 miles. Astute-class submarines have to get closer to their target.

Harvey has argued that Britain's deterrent policy since the 1970s has been based on a principle that the nation would possess the nuclear capability to overwhelm opposing air defences and destroy an enemy government and military command centre. In Britain's case, the principal theoretical threat is still Moscow.

However, cabinet and defence officials are considering whether Britain's deterrent threat should be more limited, arguing that Britain could still inflict unacceptable damage on an enemy by wiping out smaller cities or military facilities. This would require less firepower, but it is arguable whether it would affect the choice of missile carrier.

• Defence policy
• Military

Patrick Wintour
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Cameron says bombing case was properly conducted, but MP says there are 'still so many unanswered questions'

David Cameron has dismissed the possibility of a UK inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the only person convicted of involvement in the Lockerbie plane bombing – who died in Tripoli on Sunday.

The prime minister said the court case which convicted Megrahi was properly conducted and news of his death should "be a time to remember the 270 people who lost their lives in what was an appalling terrorist act".

Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond, whose government took the decision to release the former Libyan intelligence officer from his life sentence in jail in August 2009 on compassionate grounds, said however it was still open to relatives of Megrahi, who always pleaded his innocence, or campaigners to lodge a fresh appeal against his conviction 11 years ago.

He added: "The Lockerbie case remains a live investigation, and Scotland's criminal justice authorities have made clear that they will rigorously pursue any new lines of inquiry. Scotland's senior law officer the Lord Advocate recently visited Libya, and we have been offered the co-operation of the new Libyan authorities. It has always been the Crown's position that Mr Megrahi did not act alone but with others.

"It is open for relatives of Mr Megrahi to apply to the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission to seek a further appeal. And the best, indeed the only, place for guilt or innocence to be determined is in a court of law."

While families of those who died in the atrocity in 1988 gave differing reactions to the news – some welcoming Megrahi's death and others supporting his claims of innocence – Libyans largely expressed relief rather than mourning.

Megrahi's death from prostate cancer was confirmed by his brother Abdelnasser, who was at the house in Tripoli where his dead brother lay. He told the Guardian: "I don't want to talk right now, I am very upset, I don't really feel like talking. He's dead, that's it, what more do you have to know?"

At the time of his controversial release in 2009, doctors estimated Megrahi had around three months to live. The decision prompted accusations that it had been linked to UK attempts to forge trade deals with Libya, then still led by Muammar Gaddafi, and sparked outrage in the US – home to most of the victims on board the flight – after Megrahi returned to Tripoli to a hero's welcome.

Cameron, in Chicago for a Nato summit, was in opposition when Megrahi was released. "I've always been clear he should never have been released from prison", he told journalists. Questioned about the possibility of an inquiry, he insisted: "This has been thoroughly gone through. There was a proper process, a proper court proceeding and all the rest of it. We have to give people the chance to mourn those that were lost."

For Labour MP Russell Brown, who represents the Dumfries and Galloway constituency, including Lockerbie at Westminster, there were "still so many unanswered questions" about the bombing. Megrahi's death "means that the possibility of getting all the truth about the disaster may have died with him".

In the US, Carole Johnson, 68, from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, mother of Beth Ann Johnson, a 21-year-old American student on the plane, said: "This is three years too late. While I'm happy that he is dead, long ago I left it in the hands of God. I know exactly where he is, and I know it is quite hot. I'm sure he and Gaddafi are reunited again." Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said: "He was an unrepentant murderer and now I hope he will finally see justice."

However Briton Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was killed in the bombing, said Megrahi's death was a "very sad event". Swire, a member of the Justice for Megrahi group, said: "I met him face-to-face in Tripoli in December last year, when he was very sick and in a lot of pain.

"But he still wanted to talk to me about how information which he and his defence team have accumulated could be passed to me after his death." Swire added: "Right up to the end he was determined – for his family's sake, he knew it was too late for him – how the verdict against him should be overturned".

A joint statement from Justice for Megrahi – signed by 42 public figures and journalists including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former BBC chief news correspondent Kate Adie, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Scotland's most senior Catholic, and Professor Noam Chomsky – demanded an independent inquiry into Megrahi's conviction. His prosecution was based on "a fantastical tale" with no direct or forensic evidence to support a tenuous circumstantial case, they said.

Three judges who tried the case without a jury at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands were under "tremendous pressure" to return their guilty verdict of January 2001. "The prosecution case against [Megrahi] held water like a sieve … We have accusations of the key witness having been bribed for testimony; a multitude of serious question marks over material evidence, including the very real possibility of the crucial fragment of printed circuit board [from the bomb] having been fabricated; discredited forensic scientists testifying for the prosecution; crown witness testimony being retracted after the trial and, most worryingly, allegations of the crown's non-disclosure of evidence which could have been key to the defence."

In the streets around Megrahi's luxurious home, a villa set behind high walls in Tripoli's upmarket Hai Damascu neighbourhood, many said his death was a reminder of an era they preferred to forget. "All Libyans know his face, and we know that he put us back maybe 10 years," said Arfa Mohamed, a 25-year-old cashier at a nearby fast-food shop. "Thanks to him it gave the outside world a view of Libyans as terrorists."

For ordinary Libyans his position as a security official with the Gaddafi administration, and the expensive villa he was given, marked him out as part of the former regime.

"Was he innocent or guilty, only God can know," said Mohammed Ferake, in a hardware store close to Megrahi's villa. "I never saw him, his family never shopped here. The [Lockerbie] case did not help Libya ... After that, Libya was given a bad name around the world. Because of that, all that Libyans were known for was Gaddafi and his oppression."

Megrahi's death also touches on the increasingly controversial subject of the prevalence of former regime officials in Libya's transitional authorities. While the Gaddafi-era security apparatus was destroyed in last year's war, much of the administration remains intact, albeit under new masters.

• Abdelbaset al-Megrahi
• Lockerbie plane bombing
• Global terrorism
• UK security and terrorism
• Scotland
• David Cameron
• Libya
• Middle East and North Africa
• Africa

Severin CarrellJames MeikleChris StephenPatrick Wintour
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Man charged with disorderly conduct after Blair's speech interrupted by small group of demonstrators at Colby College

Former British prime minister Tony Blair was heckled by protesters as he tried to issue a plea for world unity during a college commencement speech.

Blair was interrupted by a small group of demonstrators as he attempted to deliver a speech in front of 400 graduates at Colby College in Maine.

Police say the activists shouted "warmonger" and "war criminal" during the address. One person was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Waterville police said the trouble began after Blair took to the podium.

"As Mr Blair was introduced for his address, three protesters began screaming and were removed and escorted from campus.

"A short time later, another protester began screaming and was escorted away from the crowd," a police statement read.

The man arrested was named as Lawrence Reichard, 53.

He was taken to a nearby police station and bailed on a $250 bond. Other protesters were allowed to sit through the rest of Blair's speech after agreeing not to disrupt it.

Blair's address took the form of an appeal for international cooperation and for people to try to understand other cultures.

According the Bangor Daily News, Blair told gathered graduates to be leaders, not followers.

The newspaper added that the 59-year-old former PM told the students: "Above all else, be a do-er and not a critic. Human experience has never been shaped by commentators, critics or cynics."

Blair stepped down as UK prime minister in 2007.

Since then, he has served as the envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, representing the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations in working with Palestinians to prepare for statehood.

But his role in supporting President George Bush in the Iraq war has meant that he remains a controversial figure amongst some, and an occasional focus of protest at home and overseas.

• Tony Blair
• United States

Matt Williams
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3,000 bed down in makeshift accommodation after 6.0 magnitude quake destroys buildings across Emilia-Romagna

Three thousand people in northern Italy bedded down in tents or temporary accommodation on Sunday night after a strong earthquake in the early hours killed six people, injured scores more and toppled centuries-old churches and clock towers.

Aftershocks in the Emilia-Romagna region continued to bring down damaged buildings during the day, injuring a firefighter, as emergency services scrambled to find temporary shelter for residents afraid to return home.

"Right now our absolute priority is for people to spend the night in acceptable conditions," said civil protection chief Franco Gabrielli. With storms forecast for the area, the Italian government was due to meet on Tuesday to consider declaring a state of emergency.

The 6.0 magnitude earthquake, which struck the Emilia-Romagna region 3.2 miles below ground at 4.04am, was felt across northern Italy, from Liguria to the Veneto, and was described by one official as the worst in the area since the 1300s. The last serious earthquake to strike Italy was the 6.3 scale shock in L'Aquila in 2009 which killed nearly 300.

"There's nothing to be done," said Valeria Balboni, standing amid shattered glass in her family's bathroom fittings factory near Sant'Agostino. "We're going to have to close, like so many of the others."

The earthquake left major towns such as Bologna unscathed but wrought havoc in small towns and villages dotting the countryside between Bologna, Ferrara and Modena.

In San Felice sul Panaro, the tops of several towers of a 14th-century castle collapsed while fresco-filled churches in the town were seriously damaged.

"We have practically lost all our artistic patrimony," said mayor Alberto Silvestri.

In Finale Emilia, the historic Palazzo dei Veneziani partly collapsed and 11 residents survived after knocking down a wall to escape.

The Castello delle Rocche in the town was also damaged while a clock tower was split down the middle, with one side disintegrating into rubble before the remaining side collapsed during an aftershock.

"A thousand years of history disappears just like that," said mayor Fernando Ferioli.

In the tiny hamlet of Buoncompra, 700 residents were evacuated to a makeshift emergency centre on the outskirts of town, overlooking the destroyed church of San Martino.

Italy's cultural ministry said: "After an initial survey, damage to cultural patrimony appears significant."

Italy's cultural ministry said.

As a precaution, 500 prisoners were evacuated from a prison in Ferrara.

Four night shift workers were killed at three different factories which collapsed, including Gerardo Cesaro, 57, one of 10 employees working at Tecopress, an aluminium car parts maker in Sant'Agostino. "We think everyone else got out of the factory, but he didn't make it out in time," the firm's human resource director, Adriano Orlandini, said after rescuers located Cesaro's body amid the rubble of the 45-year-old factory.

Two of the other fatalities were workers at a nearby ceramics factory where staff drove up to the gates with their families on Sunday to peer at the mountain of twisted blue steel where the factory had stood. "He wasn't supposed to be there," the mother of one of the victims told Reuters. "He changed shifts with a friend who wanted to go to the beach."

A fourth man, a Moroccan, died when he was hit by a falling beam at a plastics factory in Ponte Rodoni di Bondeno.

A woman aged 106 was also killed in her bed at her rural house by a falling beam.

Cheese producers said 300,000 wheels of grana and parmesan cheese had been lost as warehouses collapsed, while farmers were fighting to save livestock trapped in collapsed barns.

In Finale Emilia, a five-year-old girl was pulled out of a collapsed building two hours after the quake when rescuers were telephoned by a doctor in New York.

The girl's mother, who had been unable to get through to emergency services, had managed to call the doctor for help.

On Sunday, stunned and tired residents in Finale Emilia who had been outside their homes since 4am walked up and down the rubble-strewn city centre, many running and crying in the streets as aftershocks struck, including one shortly after 3pm which measured 5.1.

"In the middle, get in the middle," one woman yelled to people on the pavements as a deep rumble shook the ground, sending bricks and cornices tumbling off a number of unstable old buildings.

Describing the earthquake, resident Franca Zucchi said she was thrown out of bed and saw her chandelier swinging from wall to wall. "We all ran out into the streets in our pyjamas and underwear," Zucchi said. "I've never felt anything like it."

Pope Benedict prayed for victims in his Sunday address and prime minister Mario Monti decided to cut short his trip to Chicago for the Nato summit in order to oversee the earthquake relief operation and follow the investigation into a bombing in Brindisi on Saturday which killed a schoolgirl.

• Italy
• Earthquakes
• Natural disasters and extreme weather
• Europe

Tom KingtonAndrea Vogt
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Former athlete, who won 11 gold medals, says welfare reforms are putting wider access to sport for disabled people at risk

Britain's greatest Paralympian, Lady Tanni Grey-Thompson, has warned that disability benefit cuts will affect the development of top athletes and undermine the Games' key legacy aim of widening access to sport for disabled people.

Hundreds of thousands of working-age people will lose disability benefits over the next four years as a result of the government's controversial welfare reforms.

Grey-Thompson, who won 11 Paralympic gold medals as a wheelchair athlete, said disability living allowance (DLA) had been crucial in enabling her and many other disabled athletes to participate and compete. "It's important to recognise that the cuts will affect Paralympians, who have higher living costs as a result of their impairment."

Her comments come as the starting gun is fired on the 100-day countdown to the Paralympics, which take place at the end of August.

She said that although the very top disabled athletes might get financial help from sponsors, many others would find it difficult to compete if they lost the benefit. "I know someone who is on the edge of qualification who has had her DLA removed. It impacts on her ability to get involved in society, not just sport."

DLA is a non-means-tested benefit, worth between £20 and £131.50 a week, paid to disabled people to help with the extra costs of transport, equipment, care and other specialist needs.

The government plans to replace DLA, which goes to about 3.2 million people at an annual cost of £12.6bn, with personal independence payments (PIP) from 2013. It estimates that up to 500,000 people will lose entitlement to the benefit over the next four years as eligibility criteria are tightened and claims reassessed.

Disability benefit cuts are proving increasingly controversial for ministers. The Royal British Legion has called for disabled ex-service personnel to be given special treatment after it emerged that many limbless war veterans with mobility impairments would not qualify for disability benefit under the proposed new PIP rules.

Grey-Thompson added that it was not just an issue for elite athletes but would affect the health and wellbeing of thousands of disabled people whose ability to participate in sport would be curtailed if they lost financial support. This would drive up social care and NHS costs in the long term. Ministers hope an increase in sporting activity among disabled people, and improved wider public perceptions of disability, will be key long-term legacies of the Games.

Grey-Thompson is spearheading an £8m Sport England programme, launched on Monday, that is aimed at increasing participation in sport by disabled people. At present only about 18% of disabled adults undertake physical activity for more than 30 minutes a week, compared with 38% of non-disabled adults.

Her comments were backed by other Paralympians. Ben Rushgrove, a sprinter and silver medallist at the Beijing Games, said that while he had no problem with the principle of welfare reform, the loss of disability benefit would be an obstacle to sporting participation for many people. "Because of cuts people are going to go back into themselves a little. They won't have the funds to get out and about.

He added: "We have to ask what type of society people want. In the UK years ago we made a decision to support those people who are the most vulnerable in society and we would not let them fall by the wayside. I feel that idea is being eroded away.

"There will always be people who game the system. But most disabled people are living hand to mouth. It's about getting the change right and the pace of change right."

Ade Adepitan, the Paralympian wheelchair basketball medallist, who grew up in the East End of London, said disability benefit had been vital in enabling him to travel to training and competitions. "Without DLA I would not have been able to do what I did or be a top athlete."

Adepitan, who is co-presenting TV coverage of the games for Channel 4, said that people "need to get their facts straight" on disability benefits. Politicians' rhetoric about benefit cuts was in danger of "turning people against each other" and leading people to think incorrectly that "everyone on benefits is a scrounger".

The rower Alan Crowther, who won four world championship gold medals and has competed in able-bodied teams, said DLA had been crucial to his development as a top disabled athlete: "If you took disability benefit away from me I'd be sat in the house unable to go anywhere."

Crowther, who is blind, warned that disability benefit cuts, along with cuts to council social care budgets, would prevent many younger disabled people from participating in grassroots sport. "The government has played DLA totally wrong," he said.

Sport England said challenges facing disabled people wanting to take part in sport included a lack of specialist equipment, transport issues, difficulty accessing sport facilities, poor information about sporting opportunities, and a lack of self-confidence.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said DLA was outdated and the new PIP support would be focused on those disabled people "who need it most".

• Paralympics 2012
• Tanni Grey-Thompson
• Disability
• Benefits
• Public sector cuts
• Public services policy
• Olympic Games 2012
• Welfare

Patrick Butler
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Action by Taliban welcomed by government and clerics but insurgent says destruction was for religious reasons

Taliban fighters have destroyed fields of opium poppies in eastern Afghanistan this spring, the first time since 2001 the hardline Islamist group is known to have clamped down on the cultivation of a drug that provides a big part of its funding.

While the insurgents appear to have dug up a relatively small area of poppies in a remote area near the border with Pakistan, the move was so unusual it won a chorus of praise from the Afghan government and international organisations, whom the Taliban consider their enemy, as well as senior clerics.

"They just did what the constitution ordered," said Wasifullah Wasifi, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Kunar, where the eradication took place.

"The provincial governor really appreciates what the insurgents did. From the perspective of Islam it is forbidden and a crime to grow drugs," Wasifi said, adding that nearly a hectare had been destroyed by the Taliban in the province's Manawara district, in addition to a far larger amount eradicated by the government.

The country representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, confirmed that the Taliban had uprooted poppy fields in Kunar, and said he hoped the "rare event" might presage a stronger approach to controlling drug production.

"We welcome this new approach and would hope that this is not a one-time exception but that the Taliban, and others alike, would take a principled stance against the narcotics business," he said.

Afghanistan has for years produced the vast majority of the world's opium, with only a brief break in 2001 when the Taliban government, which had previously relied on the crop to bolster its coffers, unexpectedly dug up most of the country's poppy fields.

But opium production has flourished since the group was toppled by US-backed forces in 2001, even though it has been widely condemned by clerics as un-Islamic.

Villagers in the Manawara district were warned at the start of the sowing season not to plant poppies, said district governor Habib Rahman Mohmand.

"The Taliban leadership in Kunar sent down an order to the ordinary people that they should not grow drugs, or the crop would be destroyed," Mohmand said. "Around 20 days ago the Taliban groups came and destroyed it."

Mohmand said he believed it had been done on the order of a powerful regional commander, Zia al-Rahman. The order, however, was the result of pressure from tribal elders and religious scholars in Kunar who considered the production of drugs un-Islamic, he told the Guardian.

A local Taliban fighter who said he was involved in the eradication confirmed that the decision had come from the top commander, for religious reasons.

"It was an order from Zia al-Rahman. We went to the site to destroy the drug fields, and there were two widows who were growing drugs to feed their families because they had no husbands, so I didn't destroy their land," said the militant.

"But when Zia al-Rahman heard, he got upset, and said: 'We don't care who the owners are, this is a religious order.' So I went to the site again and destroyed the land of the widows."

In 2011, the farm-gate value of opium production in Afghanistan more than doubled from the previous year to $1.4bn (£885m) according to Reuters.

Funds flow to insurgents and corrupt members of the government. The crop can also be a key source of income for poor farmers, who insurgents sometimes rely on for food, shelter, recruits or other support.

"Over the past 10 years the Taliban have generally been pragmatic about poppy. They have not been involved in eradication," said Michael Semple, a Harvard academic and expert on the Taliban.

"In the poppy heartland of the south, where the opium trade is important in the rural economy, Taliban commanders deliberately delay the start of the spring fighting so as to allow farmers a chance to complete the opium harvest."

In eastern Kunar, opium production is just a fraction of levels in the Taliban's southern heartland, and the local commanders may have seen a chance to match government eradication programmes with their own claim to moral leadership on drugs production, Semple added.

"In Kunar the acreage planted is much smaller and opium is peripheral to the economy. In eradicating some poppies, local Taliban probably saw an opportunity to pose as a legitimate force."

Kunar residents also said there had been some eradication by the Taliban in two neighbouring districts, although authorities in both areas denied any militant role in clearing poppy fields.

"In Shaygal district in some areas, the government was doing the eradication, and in other areas the insurgents were doing the eradication," said an English teacher, who asked not to be named.

"As an eyewitness I can say the Taliban destroyed a jerib [a fifth of a hectare] of drugs between four and five days ago," said Haji Padshah Jan, an elder from a third district, Sarkani.

Rahmatullah Qaryab in Kunar and Mokhtar Amiri in Kabul contributed reporting for this story

• Afghanistan
• Drugs trade
• Taliban

Emma Graham-Harrison
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US president urges Afghan counterpart to implement electoral reform, cut out corruption and press Taliban for settlement

Barack Obama pressed the Afghanistan leader Hamid Karzai at the Nato summit in Chicago on Sunday to engage with greater urgency in secret talks with the Taliban about a political settlement.

Obama also urged Karzai to implement electoral reforms to cut down in the 2014 presidential election the kind of corruption that tarnished Karzai's re-election in 2009.

The pair were speaking at the opening of a two-day Nato summit in Chicago aimed at drawing up detailed plans for the withdrawal of the US-led, 130,000-strong international force by the end of 2014, and for a more modest presence beyond that date.

After their meeting, Karzai reaffirmed his support for a timetable, which requires the Afghan army to take over the lead in combat by the middle of next year.

Karzai added that he was "very much looking forward to an end to the war" and the day when Afghanistan would "no longer be a burden on the world".

Obama said the Nato summit was about "painting a vision, post-2014, in which we have ended our combat role, the Afghan war as we understand it is over, but our commitment to friendship and partnership with Afghanistan continues."

He added: "Both of us recognise that we still have a lot of work to do. The loss of life continues in Afghanistan. There will be hard days ahead, but we're confident that we're on the right track."

Public weariness with the war has grown in the US and in other countries among the 50-strong international coalition.

Almost all international forces are scheduled to be out by the end of 2014 after helping to maintain security for the presidential elections that year. Karzai has said he will not be standing again.

The Obama administration had hoped Chicago would be the venue for a major announcement of a political settlement with the Taliban. But these hopes crumbled when the Taliban walked away from reconciliation talks in March.

Secret talks have since been resumed, according to US officials. But Karzai, facing internal political opposition to the idea of reconciliation, has been reluctant to reach a deal.

Obama flew to Chicago on Saturday night after 24 hours of negotiation with the leaders of the G8 at the presidential retreat Camp David which was dominated by the euro-zone crisis but also addressed issues such as Afghanistan.

As well as pressing Karzai on a political settlement, Obama is having to focus on keeping the international force together, with some countries already preparing to leave early.

The new French president, François Hollande, is standing by a pledge to end French involvement in combat operations at the end of this year. But he has offered a compromise that would see many of the troops remain in Afghanistan beyond that date in other roles.

The head of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, promised on Sunday that the French decision would not precipitate a sudden exodus by other countries.

"There will be no rush for the exits," Rasmussen said. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged."

Rasmussen predicted a compromise would be reached that will see France move into a non-combat role in support of the international mission.

After the 2014 pullout, a Nato force will be left behind, in part to help with training. No figure has yet been announced but US commanders in Kabul have spoken of around 15,000-20,000 personnel.

Announcements about contributions from Nato countries towards the $4.1bn needed to finance that force for ten years are to be made at the Nato summit.

Among the contributions, Britain is promising to provide $110m a year, Germany $200m and Australia $100m. The US is to take up the bulk of the costs, anything from between 50% and 75%. Obama is also planning to speak on the sidelines of the Nato summit with the Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari.

The US and Pakistan are engaged in negotiations about re-opening a supply route to Afghanistan through Pakistan closed in protest over the killing of Pakistan troops in a US air strike.

The White House national security spokesman Ben Rhodes, briefing reporters on a flight to Chicago, predicted the issue of the border closure would be resolved soon. Although the US-led forces are able to transport supplies though alternative routes from the north of Afghanistan, it is more expensive.

"On the supply lines, we believe that this is going to be resolved. There have been positive steps, statements made by the Pakistanis, and we're currently negotiating the opening of the supply lines with them; we expect that to take some time. So there is still work to be done through those negotiations," Rhodes said.

"We're not anticipating necessarily closing out those negotiations this weekend."

• Nato
• Afghanistan
• Barack Obama
• Hamid Karzai
• US foreign policy
• US military
• United States

Ewen MacAskill
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RAF Kinloss in Moray, already at centre of radiation investigation, could also be contaminated with sulphur mustard

A potentially unstable chemical weapon could be buried beneath an airbase that will shortly become home to more than 900 army personnel.

RAF Kinloss in Moray is already the focus of an investigation into radioactive contamination, and a report has emerged suggesting the site could also be contaminated with mustard gas.

Officially known as sulphur mustard, the colourless, oily liquid can cause severe burns and cancer when released.

A land-quality assessment uncovered by BBC Scotland identified potential sulphur mustard contamination in 2004 before construction work began on a pipeline for a water treatment project.

The report states: "Sulphur mustard is not a persistent chemical and under most conditions will readily break down. Under damp conditions (such as within soil) the action of hydrolysis can form an unreactive protective barrier around globules of active sulphur mustard. These globules can exist within the soil matrix and any disturbance to such a soil may puncture the globule and release the active sulphur mustard."

RAF Kinloss stopped functioning as an operational airbase last year after 72 years of service, as part of the government's strategic defence and security review.

About 930 personnel from 39 engineer regiment (air support) are due to move from Waterbeach, Cambridge, to Kinloss in July, where they will provide engineer support to the Royal Air Force and the army.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Our investigations to date suggest there is no indication of significant risk to public health or the environment associated with the past storage or disposal of chemical weapon agents in the UK. Work undertaken indicates the sites are suitable for their current use, provided that any management systems, restrictions or procedures remain in place.

"We consider protection of human health and the environment to be very important, and if we identify threats to either we inform the regulatory authorities and public as soon as possible ensuring the necessary management measures are put in place."

Thomas Docherty MP, a member of the Commons defence select committee, said he had called on the government to make an urgent statement on the matter.

He told the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland: "The MoD has had a culture over seven decades of not sharing information. There's an arrogance about the MoD that is not new, but it has to be tackled once and for all."

He added: "We need an urgent statement from the UK government that spells out exactly who knew what when, that says what is the actual independent scientific risk, when did they inform the Scottish regulators, when did they inform the local authorities, and when did they inform Scottish ministers? And that needs to be done as soon as practicable."

The Scottish environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, said: "I am deeply concerned by media reports that the MoD may have sold land contaminated with radioactive material to communities around RAF Kinloss. I understand that the MoD is conducting investigations into possible contamination at the site.

"The secretary of state for defence must ensure that this work is comprehensive, transparent and completed as soon as practically possible. Should the presence of radioactive contamination be confirmed I will press the MoD to work with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and start remediation work as a matter of urgency."

He continued: "Understandably, these reports will cause anxiety in communities around RAF Kinloss. It is imperative the Ministry of Defence does all it can to reassure the public in Moray and across the rest of Scotland that any further relevant information will be disclosed in full."

The SNP's Westminster defence spokesman, Angus Robertson, MP for Moray, has called for a meeting with the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, to discuss reports of waste at the Kinloss base.

Robertson said: "Recent reports raise questions relating to potential dangers at the Kinloss base. Given reports of radioactive material at Dalgety Bay, it is important that we understand the situation at Kinloss. This is why I'm requesting a meeting with the defence secretary Philip Hammond. It is important that there is as much transparency as possible from the Ministry of Defence."

The Moray-based convenor of the Scottish Green party's Highlands and Islands branch, Fabio Villani, said: "The MoD should come clean and disclose its records about the disposal of potentially harmful materials at Kinloss, Balnageith and at other former airbases elsewhere in Scotland. This would pave the way for contaminated land to be managed to avoid risks to human and environmental health, and for uncontaminated land to be brought safely back into productive use."

• Royal Air Force
• Scotland
• Military
• Ministry of Defence
• Nuclear waste

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At least 16 people killed in attack, while UN observers narrowly escape roadside car bomb in Damascus

The Syrian army has killed 16 people, including children, during shelling in the town of Souran in the central province of Hama, the British-based rights group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

"The army shelled the town and then stormed it," the head of the group, Rami Abdelrahman, told Reuters, citing residents.

Hama has been a focal point of Syria's 14-month uprising against the country's president, Bashar al-Assad.

In a separate incident, a roadside bomb exploded in a restive suburb of Damascus as senior UN officials toured the area, blowing off the front of a parked vehicle but causing no casualties.

Visiting UN peacekeeping chief Hervé Ladsous and Robert Mood, the chief of UN observers in Syria, were 150 metres away, along with accompanying journalists, when the blast went off in the Douma suburb, engulfing a Toyota pickup car in flames and smoke. It was not immediately clear what the target of the explosion was, but the car was parked near a security checkpoint.

A security official at the checkpoint told the observers that gunmen had targeted two military buses in Douma earlier in the day, wounding more than 30 security agents.

In Damascus, opposition groups reported fighting overnight between government forces and army defectors in the district of Kfar Souseh, a hotbed of dissent against Assad's regime. The district is a high security area, housing the foreign ministry and several security and intelligence agencies. It has also been the scene of frequent anti-Assad demonstrations since the uprising began.

"Violent clashes broke out between rebel fighters and regime troops at a checkpoint," the Observatory said in a statement.

Syrian rebels claimed in an internet statement that they carried out a sophisticated attack that killed top political and security officials meeting in the capital. The posting claimed those killed included Assef Shawkat, deputy chief of staff for security affairs; defence minister Dawoud Rajha; interior minister Mohammad al-Shaar; and former defence minister Hasan Turkmani.

Al-Shaar denied the rebel claims at a press conference. Turkmani was interviewed by state-run Syrian TV in his office, saying the claims were "blatant lies".

Syrian officials rarely respond to claims and statements issued by the opposition and their quick denials were unusual.

The revolt against Assad's regime started in March 2011 with mostly peaceful protests calling for political change. The deadly government crackdown led many opposition supporters to take up arms. Now, the regime is facing an armed insurgency targeting government installations, soldiers and security forces.

In March, the UN said that 9,000 people had been killed. Hundreds more have died since.

Clashes in the heart of the Syrian capital have become more common recently but are still rare compared to other opposition strongholds in Syria that witness deadly violence almost daily.

A ceasefire that was supposed to start last month has never really taken hold, undermining the rest of international envoy Kofi Annan's plan, which is supposed to lead to talks to end the 15-month crisis.

World powers remain divided on how to end Syria's crisis. The US and other Western and Arab nations have called for Assad to leave power, and the US and EU have placed increasingly stiff sanctions on Damascus. But with Russia and China blocking significant new UN punishments, US officials are trying to get consensus among other allies about ways to promote Assad's ouster.

On Sunday, an anti-Syrian cleric and his bodyguard were shot dead in neighbouring Lebanon, where a spillover of Syria's conflict has inflamed tensions and triggered sectarian fighting in recent days.

The two were on their way to a rally in a remote northern Sunni region when they were shot. The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain unclear but the state-run National News Agency said the sheikh and his guard appeared to have been killed by soldiers after their convoy failed to stop at an army checkpoint.

The deaths could add to the tensions between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in the region, and there were fears of clashes breaking out as the cleric's supporters blocked roads with burning tyres in protest.

The Lebanese army issued a statement, saying it deeply regretted the incident and that a committee will investigate.

• Syria
• Middle East and North Africa
• Arab and Middle East unrest
• Lebanon

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Blind activist begins exile in US with call for greater rule of law at home as supporters fear for those left behind

Supporters of Chen Guangcheng have warned that his family and friends in China are still at risk after the blind activist arrived in New York to begin a new life in the United States.

Chen — whose daring escape from house arrest last month prompted a diplomatic crisis — arrived on Saturday night to cheering crowds, and used his first speech to press for greater rule of law in the country he left behind.

"I hope everybody works for me to promote justice and fairness in China," Chen said through an interpreter, ahead of his enrolment for a fellowship in the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University School of Law.

He was also careful to thank the Chinese government, knowing the wellbeing of relatives and associates could be influenced by an upcoming shift in the Communist party leadership. Instead, he criticised the provincial authorities in Shandong for years of persecution, including 18 months of house arrest, beatings and harassment of his relatives.

Chen said "acts of retribution may not have abated" in his village of Dongshigu, which was still under lockdown. "We hope to see a thorough investigation into these events," he said.

The figurehead of the rights movement suggested his own role will temporarily diminish. "I am requesting leave of absence and I hope they will understand," he said. "For the past seven years, I have never had a day's rest so I have come here for a bit of recuperation for body and spirit."

He Peirong – who played a key role in the escape by driving Chen from Shandong to Beijing – said she sympathised, even though the reverberations of Chen's flight remain unclear. "I support any decision made by Chen, but it's too early to say whether his departure is a good thing for China's rights movement. Things are not settled. Problems are not solved. His family is still in China. The people who helped him escape are still in China."

He – who was detained for several days after Chen's escape and remains under surveillance – spoke of her admiration for Chen.

"He has done more than you could expect from any individual … Although he has experienced so much injustice and so many threats, he sticks to his beliefs. He is like a piece of jade: always smooth and warm."

Others supporters, relatives and lawyers, including Guo Yushan and Liu Weiguo, were not answering their phones. Several have been told not to speak to the foreign media. Zeng Jinyan, who met Chen before he took refuge at the US embassy, said her computer had been hacked and infected with a virus that made it difficult to communicate.

Chen's nephew has been arrested and charged with attempted murder after using a kitchen knife to fight off local officials who intruded into his home.

The activist's brother has described how he was chained to a chair and beaten for three days. His lawyer and friend, Jiang Tianyong, was punched so powerfully by state security officials that he lost his hearing. He said police continued to impose tight restrictions on rights activists and he expected the pressure to intensify ahead of a key party congress this autumn.

"There won't be any big changes for us now that Chen Guangcheng has left. There are still many reasons to keep up control and stability preservation," Jiang told Reuters.

A supporter in Shandong told the news agency the authorities were unlikely to ease pressure any time soon. "The Communist party doesn't want to set a precedent over this case by easing up after a dissident has escaped detention," said Sun Wenguang, a retired professor, who is monitored 24 hours a day by security officers.

Although supporters in the US say Chen is now free to "speak truth to power'" it is far from clear that his voice will be any easier to hear in his homeland. In the past, Chinese dissidents who sought exile in the US have found their influence muted by distance and Beijing's "Great Firewall" – which filters internet content from overseas.

Few are allowed to return. Last week, Wu'er Kaixi – the student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests – was refused permission to return to China to see his ailing parents.

Nonetheless, Chen's escape could make a difference in China because of the timing. The ability of a blind man to evade dozens of guards raises awkward questions for party hardman Zhou Yongkang, who has a bigger budget for internal security than the People's Liberation Army has to protect China's borders. Zhou is due to step down this autumn.

Chen's arrival in New York could also play in US politics and diplomatic strategy. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney had criticised the Obama administration's handling of the case when it was unclear whether Chen would leave China.

But the Democrat former House speaker Nancy Pelosi described Chen's flight to the US as "a milestone in the cause for human rights in China".

"The courage of Chen Guangcheng to risk his life and livelihood to advocate for disadvantaged people in China is an inspiration to freedom-seeking people around the world," she said.

Human rights campaigners warned against complacency.

"Chen's departure for the US does not and should not in any way mark a 'mission accomplished' moment for the US government or any other government which values human rights and rule of law in China. The fact is that getting Chen Guangcheng and his family on a plane is the easiest part of this saga. The harder, longer term part is ensuring his right under international law to return to China when he sees fit," said Phelim Kine, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch in New York.

• Chen Guangcheng
• China
• Asia Pacific
• US politics
• US foreign policy
• United States
• Communism
• Human rights

Jonathan Watts
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O2 Arena, London

Jay-Z and Kanye West are hip-hop's current two main players, and they are pathologically keen to celebrate the fact. Late last year, the pair of multimillionaire American rappers released a joint album, Watch the Throne, whose basic premise was that no upstart rival should attempt even to think about challenging their musical and lyrical magnificence.

The record's commercial performance justified its creators' hype, grabbing a Grammy, topping the US Billboard chart and breaking the iTunes store's one-week sales record. This live tour has proved similarly lucrative, packing arenas around the globe, including five nights in London at the O2.

It may be a self-aggrandising concept, but Watch the Throne is a surprisingly minimalist production. With the exception of a pair of spectacular hydraulic-powered cubes from which the duo sporadically trade rhymes, the night essentially consists of the black-clad Jay-Z and West, side by side on stage, standing or falling on the strength of their verbal dexterity and charisma.

It's the dynamic between these two very different artists that makes the evening so fascinating. Jay-Z, the reformed gangster turned music-industry mogul, has long been a model of ruthless efficiency at turning his linguistic genius into dollars. West is the more gifted producer and musical auteur, yet his tantrums have led even President Obama to bestow on him the less flattering description of a "jackass".

These personae transfer to the stage, where the swaggering Jay-Z, inscrutable and ice-cool behind shades and a baseball cap, appears very much the senior partner. It doesn't help the diminutive West that he has taken the decision to dress head-to-toe in leather: he spends the evening caked in a film of sweat.

Both rappers routinely pen intricate, multilayered rhymes that retain their visceral impact. Who Gon Stop Me finds West comparing the fate of poverty-dwelling black Americans to "the holocaust: millions of our people lost", as Jay-Z settles for braggadocio: "So many watches, I need eight arms."

Both have familiar hits to spare, with West's All of the Lights and Jay-Z's 99 Problems being thrillingly uplifting. But they are best when they come together for Watch the Throne material. On New Day, over a Nina Simone sample, they sit and touchingly worry over the fates that may await their offspring: Jay-Z fears his newborn daughter is fair game for the paparazzi; West hopes any future son escapes his father's public ridicule.

The audacious No Church in the Wild finds Jay-Z casually mulling philosophical delineations between Socrates and Plato, before he and West close with this unique tour's usual coda of five consecutive runs through Niggas in Paris. There have been few lulls in a two-and-a-half-hour set: in a hip-hop world where their nearest challengers are the relatively tame Rick Ross and Drake, Jay-Z and Kanye West are not about to surrender their throne any time soon.

Rating: 4/5

• Kanye West
• Jay-Z
• Urban music
• Hip-hop
• Rap

Ian Gittins
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Brindisi chief prosecutor says device, which exploded as pupils were arriving for lessons, seems to be the work of one person

The bomb attack that killed a teenage girl and wounded 10 other people in the southern Italian town of Brindisi was probably carried out by an individual with no links to the mafia, a senior official said.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in demonstrations of sympathy for the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school and the family of the dead teenager, Melissa Bassi.

Marco Dinapoli, the Brindisi chief prosecutor who is leading the investigation, said police already had an identikit of the suspect. "It seems to be the work of a single person," he said. "The most probable hypothesis is that it was an isolated act."

He refused to give details about the suspect. "At the moment, we don't understand what the motivation for this massacre might be," Dinapoli said. No claim of responsibility had been received.

Early suspicions pointed at organised crime largely because the school was named after the wife of an anti-mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, and the attack took place days before the 20th anniversary of the couple's death in a bomb attack in Sicily.

However, Dinapoli said: "It seems improbable, not entirely to be excluded but improbable, that it is connected with mafia networks." He said repeat attacks on other schools appeared unlikely.

Dinapoli said investigators had acquired "significant" video evidence that suggested one man set off the device, which exploded as pupils at the school were arriving by bus for the start of lessons on Saturday morning.

He declined to describe the video evidence but said it showed a single individual activating a remote control to detonate a rudimentary bomb made up of three gas canisters hidden in a container outside the school gates.

One of the injured, Veronica Capodieci, has been transferred to a hospital in Lecce. She was still in a serious condition, but the hospital reported that she was stable, had regained consciousness and was alert.

The pope added his commiserations to messages of sympathy from leaders including the French president, François Hollande, saying he was praying for "Melissa, the innocent victim of brutal violence, and her family".

Italy was already on edge after a series of attacks on public institutions including the main tax and debt collection agency, which prompted the interior minister, Anna Maria Cancellieri, to step up security at key sites.

As the economic crisis has hit hard, most visibly through a series of high-profile suicides of struggling small businessmen, there have been fears of a return to the kind of violence seen during the 1970s. As well as the attacks on the tax agency Equitalia, an anarchist group claimed responsibility for shooting the chief executive of the nuclear engineering group Ansaldo Nucleare this month.

• Italy
• Europe

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Free-market thinktank's conference opens in Chicago with president admitting defections are hurting group's finances

The first Heartland Institute conference on climate change in 2008 had all the trappings of a major scientific conclave – minus large numbers of real scientists. Hundreds of climate change contrarians, with a few academics among them, descended into the banquet rooms of a lavish Times Square hotel for what was purported to be a reasoned debate about climate change.

But as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank's claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.

Heartland's claims to "stay above the fray" of the climate wars was exploded by a billboard campaign earlier this month comparing climate change believers to the Unabomer Ted Kaczynski, and a document sting last February that revealed a plan to spread doubt among kindergarteners on the existence of climate change.

Along with the damage to its reputation, Heartland's financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.

In a fiery blogpost on the Heartland website, the organisation's president Joseph Bast admitted Heartland's defectors were "abandoning us in this moment of need".

Over the last few weeks, Heartland has lost at least $825,000 in expected funds for 2012, or more than 35% of the funds its planned to raise from corporate donors, according to the campaign group Forecast the Facts, which is pushing companies to boycott the organisation.

The organisation has been forced to make up those funds by taking its first publicly acknowledged donations from the coal industry. The main Illinois coal lobby is a last-minute sponsor of this week's conference, undermining Heartland's claims to operate independently of fossil fuel interests.

Its entire Washington DC office, barring one staffer, decamped, taking Heartland's biggest project, involving the insurance industry, with them.

Board directors quit, conference speakers cancelled at short-notice, and associates of long standing demanded Heartland remove their names from its website. The list of conference sponsors shrank by nearly half from 2010, and many of those listed sponsors are just websites operating on the rightwing fringe.

"It's haemorrhaging," said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, who has spent years tracking climate contrarian outfits. "Heartland's true colours finally came through, and now people are jumping ship in quick order."

It does not look like Heartland is about to adopt a corrective course of action.

In his post, Bast defended the ads, writing: "Our billboard was factual: the Unabomber was motivated by concern over man-made global warming to do the terrible crimes he committed." He went on to describe climate scientist Michael Mann and activist Bill McKibben as "madmen".

The public unravelling of Heartland began last February when the scientist Peter Gleick lied to obtain highly sensitive materials, including a list of donors.

The publicity around the donors' list made it difficult for companies with public commitment to sustainability, such as the General Motors Foundation, to continue funding Heartland. The GM Foundation soon announced it was ending its support of $15,000 a year.

But what had been a gradual collapse gathered pace when Heartland advertised its climate conference with a billboard on a Chicago expressway comparing believers in climate science to the Unabomber.

The slow trickle of departing corporate donors turned into a gusher.

Even Heartland insiders, such as Eli Lehrer, who headed the organisation's Washington group, found the billboard too extreme. Lehrer, who headed the biggest project within Heartland, on insurance, immediately announced his departure along with six other staff.

"The ad was ill advised," he said. "I'm a free-market conservative with a long rightwing resumé and most, if not all, of my team fits the same description and of us found it very problematic. Staying with Heartland was simply not workable in the wake of this billboard."

Heartland took down the billboard within 24 hours, but by then the ad had gone viral.

Lehrer, who maintains the split was amicable, said the billboard had undermined Heartland's claims to be a serious conservative thinktank.

"It didn't reflect the seriousness which I want to bring to public policy," Lehrer said in the telephone interview. "As somebody who deals mostly with insurance I believe all risk have to be taken seriously and there certainly are some important climate and global warming related risks that must be taken account of in the insurance market. Trivialising them is not consistent with free-market thought. Suggesting they are only thought about by people who are crazy is not good for the free market."

Other Heartland allies came to a similar conclusion. In a letter to Heartland announcing he was backing out from the conference, Ross McKitrick, a Canadian economist wrote: "You can not simultaneously say that you want to promote a debate while equating the other side to terrorists and mass murderers."

A number of other experts meanwhile began cutting their ties with Heartland, according to a tally kept by a Canadian blogger BigCityLiberal.

Meanwhile, there was growing anger that Bast failed to consult with colleagues before ordering up the Kaczynski attack ads.

Four board members told the Guardian they had not been consulted in advance about the ad. "I did not have prior approval of the billboard and was in favor of discontinuing the billboard when I was made aware of it," Jeff Judson, a Texas lobbyist and board member wrote in an email.

Could the turmoil and discontent at Heartland eventually prove its undoing? Campaigners would certainly hope so. "We are watching the consequences of organisation that acts quite randomly and that is actually an extremist organisation in the end," said Davies. "They are not built to be at the hump of the climate denial movement."

But while more mainstream corporate entities are deserting Heartland, others are stepping into the breach, including the coal lobby and conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation.

Both the Illinois Coal Association and Heritage stepped in to fund this week's conference, after other corporate donors began backing out in protest at the offensive Kaczynski ad.

Meanwhile, a Greenpeace analysis of the other smaller conference sponsors suggests they have collectively received $5m in funds from Exxon and other oil companies.

The Coal Association and Heritage were not listed on the original conference sponsor list, but appeared to come in about a week or so after the appearance of the offending Kaczynski ad.

Phil Gonet, the chief lobbyist for the 20 coal companies in the association, said he had no qualms about stepping in to fund the Heartland conference.

"We support the work they are doing and so we thought we would finally make a contribution to the organisation," he said, calling criticism of the ad "moot", "pointless" and "absurd".

Gonet went on: "I made a contribution mainly in support of a conference that is designed to make balanced information available to the public on the issue of global warming … In general, the message of the Heartland Institute is something the Illinois Coal Association supports."

• Climate change scepticism
• Climate change
• Climate change
• United States

Suzanne Goldenberg
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