Ban and Annan seek Syria unanimity Efforts to bring about an end to violence in Syria reached a new peak on Tuesday with missions to China and Russia by senior UN figures, as fierce fighting was reported in the centre of the capital Damascus. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, arrived in Beijing to hold meetings with political leaders, while Kofi Annan, his predecessor and the international peace envoy for Syria, was in Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin. China and Russia are the two members of the UN Security Council that have held out on imposing strict sanctions on the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Mr Ban has previously warned the council that failure to act will give "licence for further massacres" in Syria. With a vote on future actions on the crisis due on Wednesday, Russia has shown no signs of loosening its resistance to international steps taken against the Damascus regime. Meanwhile, the Syrian capital was reported to be the scene of fighting on different fronts, including in the area of Sabaa Bahrat, which is the site of Syria's central bank and several government offices, including the headquarters of Mr al-Assad's Ba'ath party. Activists claimed that government forces had used helicopter gunships in the capital's Q'adam and Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhoods. The state-run news agency was reporting that troops were chasing "terrorists" from one area of the city to another. Wednesday's vote in New York will be on a resolution proposed by the UK, US, France and Germany, that would extend the UN's observer mission to Syria by a further 45 days, but also put Mr Annan's peace plan under the aegis of Chapter 7 of the UN charter. That section allows the security council to authorise actions which range from economic or diplomatic sanctions to military force. The US has suggested it is only proposing the use of sanctions against Syria. Previous resolutions have been vetoed by both China and Russia. Neither has made formal statements on their position over the vote, but the People's Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese communist party, on Tuesday appeared to liken the proposals to the intervention in Iraq in 2003 or last year's bloodshed in Libya, describing them as "pretexts for large foreign powers to seek private gain."