UN monitors visit Homs. 9.10am: Syria: More details from Reuters on the deployment of the next batch of monitors: Fifteen more ceasefire monitors of a total advance team of 30 are expected to be in Syria by Monday and every effort is being made to deploy the full mission of up to 300 observers, the spokesman for international mediator Kofi Annan said on Friday. "We expect the 30 will be on the ground by the end of April, on Monday," Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told Reuters in Geneva. There is no delay... It is a whole process," he said. They are deploying at remarkable speed. Fawzi also confirmed to AP that observers inspected the site of an explosion that flattened homes in Hama. Fawzi said observers visited the site but he had no immediate word on what they saw. Two UN observers are stationed in Hama, part of an advance team of 15 monitors who are visiting hot spots to try to salvage a cease-fire that is part of a peace plan aimed at ending the violence and bringing the two sides to the negotiating table. 9.02am: Syria: The full advance team of 30 ceasefire monitors is to be deployed in Syria by Monday, says a snap by Reuters, citing Kofi Annan's spokesman. Earlier this week members of the UN security council expressed frustration at the slow pace of the deployment of the monitors, after being told that it would take a further month before all the 300 observers began work. 8.44am: Syria: More footage of that inspection visit to Dera'a yesterday shows disturbing images of protesters holding aloft the body of boy for the monitors to see. Warning the following clip includes distressing content. In an email the Syrian Network for Human Rights says the boy was shot during the visit. More gunfire is heard after the body is shown to the inspectors. As ever the video can't be authenticated but the presence of the UN vehicle would make it difficult to fake. 8.21am: (all times BST) Welcome to Middle East Live. Gunfire from Syrian troops has forced protesters to take cover behind UN vehicles during an inspection visit, according to activists, underlining US fears that the peace initiative is collapsing. Protesters were forced to take cover behind UN vehicles when Syrian soldiers opened fire during an inspection visit to the southern city of Dera'a, according to video footage from activists. The protesters are seen showing the inspectors a sand-bagged army lookout post when shots are heard. Several protesters are seen hiding behind the UN vehicle, as blue-helmeted monitors sat inside the vehicle filming the scene themselves. Kofi Annan's diplomatic initiative to end the crisis "is failing," two senior Obama administration officials told a Senate committee, Foreign Policy magazine reports. Kathleen Hicks, deputy under secretary of defense for policy, and Derek Chollet, national security council senior director for strategy, both said that the Annan plan was heading toward collapse and that new options for confronting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were being prepared. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said he was "gravely alarmed" by reports that civilian areas continued to be shelled by government forces, after activists claimed that up to 70 people died in a rocket attack in Hama. In statement from Ban's office said: "He condemns in the strongest terms the continued repression against the Syrian civilian population and violence from any quarter. This situation is unacceptable and must stop immediately. UN monitors have visited the scene of the alleged attack in Hama, but have not said who was to blame for the blast. State media blamed the explosion on a "terrorist group" that accidentally set off an explosive in a house used to make bombs. The US should walk back its attempts to secure regime change in Syria and start fully backing Annan's attempts to find a solution with the Assad regime, argues Geoffrey Aronson director of research at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. In an article for Foreign Policy magazine he says: Annan's effort needs more American support than is currently the case for his effort to be credible. His effort to craft a diplomatic solution through the regime is the best attainable outcome. Adoption of such a policy will help to dispel the polarisation between the US and Russia and China that harms the prospects of a diplomatic outcome. This course charts a future in shades of grey rather than black and white - less satisfying to those lusting for Assad's head perhaps, but far more effective. Doubts are growing about the authenticity of video footage purporting to show a man being buried alive by soldiers in Qusair. An article by the opposition site Ayyam describes the difficulty of corroborating the clip. The video's original publisher is not known and it was not carried by any of the known activist networks in Syria. The earliest copy of the video, which was traced back to a Facebook rather than YouTube post (which is the standard), has since been deleted. Al-Ayyam has been in contact with activists and FSA officers throughout Homs. Activists in Qusair investigated the claim that the man is from their town. Unfortunately as the man's face is covered in the video he could not be identified. However, the activists report that all their peers are accounted for. Their efforts included surveying refugees from Qusair in other towns, however, it is impossible to completely rule out that the man is in fact from their town. A continuing failure to address weaknesses in the economy could lead to a second, angrier revolution in Egypt, writes Jane Kinninmont in a new paper for the thinktank Chatham House. It urges that international organisations, like the IMF, should be cautious about trying to impose free market solutions on country keen to tackle social justice. International organisations need to remember that economic policy advice on the role of the state (for instance, on privatisation and subsidies) touches on political issues and values, rather than being purely technical. Rather than repeating old mantras that a smaller public sector is always a good thing, external policy-makers should tread carefully and sensitively, recognising that having debates over the role of the state, the free market and the nature of globalization are part of democratic self-determination - and remembering that these debates are likely to be taking place in their own countries as well. A court has dismissed charges of insulting Islam bought against Egypt's most popular comic actor, Adel Iman, just days after another court fined him over similar charges. The differing outcomes underscore the confusion and irregularity in the application of Egypt's laws against defaming religion, says the New York Times.