BBC News with Stewart Macintosh
Members of the UN Security Council say they are finalising a draft resolution authorising an
advance team
of observers to travel to Syria to monitor the ceasefire there and the further implementation of the international peace plan. A spokesman for the UN envoy Kofi Annan said a group of observers was already standing by to board a plane to Damascus as soon as the resolution was passed. Barbara Plett reports from New York.
There's intense political pressure to get the observers into Syria. Kofi Annan's spokesman said about a dozen monitors are on standby waiting for a green light from the Security Council. But the Russian envoy here said the draft resolution to authorise the mission is too long and complicated. It was supposed to be a brief text to just get some boots on the ground, he said. Western diplomats say they need to
spell out
the details of the
mandate
even if it's for a small advance team. They also want to keep language criticising the government's human rights violations, which Russia wants to drop.
In Syria itself, activists say several people have been shot dead by the security forces during demonstrations after Friday prayers. The regular weekly protest had been seen as a major test of the ceasefire, which came into place on Thursday.
The Sudanese army says it's launched a
counterattack
on the disputed oil fields of Heglig, which were occupied by South Sudan earlier this week. It said Sudanese forces were on the outskirts of Heglig town, but the South Sudanese say they are still firmly in control. The country's ambassador to the UN, Agnes Oswaha, said South Sudan had originally attacked the north in self-defence.