UN Security Council to vote on up to 300 Syria monitors

UN ceasefire monitors visited the Syrian city of Homs on Saturday after months of bombardment, hours before the UN Security Council was to vote on a draft resolution to authorize the deployment to Syria of up to 300 unarmed military observers.

During the visit, residents chanted loudly for a military intervention to protect them from President Bashar Assad's regime forces. Opposition activists in Homs, epicentre of the 13-month-old revolt against Assad, said shelling and gunfire stopped for the first time in weeks before Syrian authorities let the monitors into the city. (News agencies)