Thousands of football fans queued Saturday to get the first beers served at the official World Cup fan zone after sales were banned around stadiums in Islamic Qatar.

Twenty-four hours from the football tournament's opening match, Juan Alvarez emerged from the Budweiser stand with a big grin on his face, balancing 12 plastic goblets of beer on three trays.

Alvarez brushed aside the $13.50 price for one half-litre, and came out just in time to see the first of the spectacular firework displays that host Qatar is putting on for fans each day.

More than 300 children in rebel-held northwest Syria kicked off their own football World Cup on Saturday, with organisers hoping to shine a light on communities battered by 11 years of war.

The excited children took part in the opening ceremony at the municipal stadium in Idlib, some wearing the jerseys of this year's World Cup teams, an AFP photographer said.

Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua welcomed Saturday the resumption of formal talks with US counterpart John Kerry as "very constructive", as the world's two top polluters ended a freeze in cooperation.

The senior officials met during the UN's COP27 conference in Egypt after US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed at a G20 summit in Indonesia earlier this week to resume collaboration on climate change.

Beijing suspended the talks in August in anger at US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.

The world's French-speaking countries gathered in Tunisia on Saturday for talks focused on economic cooperation, but faced calls to do more to resolve international crises.

The head of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF) urged the organisation to use its clout in a world "fractured" by multiple crises.

"The IOF must remain a link that can be used to prevent tensions from degenerating into conflicts," said Louise Mishikiwabo, a former Rwandan chief diplomat.

Sergio Perez outpaced Red Bull team-mate and world champion Max Verstappen in setting the fastest time in Saturday's third and final practice for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Mexican, whose relationship with the two-time world champion is strained following the latter's refusal to obey team orders and let him pass in last Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix, clocked a best lap of 1minute 24.982 seconds.

This was enough to take him 0.152 seconds ahead of the Dutchman

Iranian security forces killed at least three protesters Saturday in the latest violence against demonstrations sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a rights group said.

The country's clerical leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is facing its biggest challenge since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, in the two months of civil unrest since Amini's death in custody on September 16.

The state has responded with a crackdown that Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said in an updated toll had left at least 378 people dead, among them 47 children.

Seven-year-old Alain trains with two dozen other children in Doha, the World Cup's host city, striving to lose weight in pursuit of his dream: becoming a professional footballer.

Dribbling around cones on a hot and sticky evening, he is taking part in a broad campaign to encourage health and fitness in the Gulf, home to alarming levels of obesity.

"I'm here to lose weight and become a footballer... because this sport makes me happy," Alain says with a smile, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Iran's opening World Cup match against England on Monday is likely to be overshadowed by a deadly crackdown on women-led protests back home.

The football-obsessed nation of 80 million people is normally united by football but is reeling after two months of nationwide protests since the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody on September 16.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died three days after her arrest in Tehran over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's dress code for women, which includes the mandatory hijab headscarf.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino blasted the "hypocrisy" of Western critics of Qatar's human rights record on Saturday, making a passionate defence of the World Cup in the Gulf state on the eve of the kick-off.

The build-up to the tournament has been dominated by concerns over Qatar's treatment of migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ community, to the visible annoyance of organisers.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino hit back at criticism of Qatar's human rights record on Saturday, blasting the "hypocrisy" of Western critics on the eve of the World Cup kick-off.

Infantino, speaking at his opening press conference of the tournament in Doha, also expressed support for the LGBTQ community and migrant workers.

"This moral lesson-giving -- one-sided -- is just hypocrisy," said the Swiss.

"I don't want to give you any lessons of life, but what is going on here is profoundly, profoundly unjust."