The UN’s new envoy to Syria said today that president Bashar Assad’s regime should realise that the need for change is both “urgent” and “necessary” and that it must meet the “legitimate” demands of the Syrian people.

Syrian government forces have used helicopter gunships to battle rebels in the capital Damascus, activists said.

A deadline for a United Nations-brokered ceasefire passed today without reports of major violence, opposition activists said, hours after Syria promised to observe a halt in fighting.