An Iranian climber who caused a sensation by competing abroad without a hijab was given a hero's welcome on her return to Tehran Wednesday by supporters who raucously applauded her action.

With Iran still shaken by women-led protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini one month ago, after her arrest for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women, Elnaz Rekabi returned following the competition in South Korea.

A cheering crowd welcomed home Iranian sports climber Elnaz Rekabi at a Tehran airport Wednesday, after she competed in South Korea without a hijab, media in the Islamic republic reported.

Rekabi wore only a headband during the Asian Championships in Seoul on Sunday, in what was seen by some a gesture of solidarity with month-long protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly violating the Islamic dress rules.

After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon's capital where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution.

Thick black smoke sometimes billows from its red-and-white chimneys, leaving a grey haze in the air above the Zouk Mikael industrial district where the toxins remain trapped by a nearby mountain chain.

Zeina, aged 40, says she lost her younger sister and a cousin to pulmonary fibrosis and that two of her uncles died of lung cancer years earlier.

Just a year into her marriage, Manal became one of the tens of thousands of Iraqis every year who divorce in a deeply conservative nation where break-up rates have risen.

For Manal, like many other women, the reason was clear -- her husband's financial dependence on his family's business meant that "he couldn't take any decisions of his own".

The 33-year-old was divorced eight years ago from her ex-husband, who is also her cousin and who worked for his father's appliance shop.

The bill being paid by Qatar for the most expensive World Cup ever held is set to rise to fantasy levels in the one month left to the November 20 kickoff.

Gleaming new stadiums that cost more than $6.5 billion are ready, a driver-less metro system with a price tag of $36 billion serves five of the eight venues.

The palm tree-styled street lamps and neon office blocks that line the highway from the expanded international airport to central Doha will be an instant sign to the million-plus incoming fans that the first World Cup in an Arab nation is going to be a glitzy affair.

The United States said Tuesday it was raising with Saudi Arabia a prison sentence handed to a US citizen over tweets critical of the kingdom, another source of tension between the historic allies.

The State Department confirmed the detention of Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a US citizen of Saudi origin, and said the United States brought up his case starting in December and as recently as Monday.

Almadi was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the tweets, his son Ibrahim confirmed to AFP.

Qatar, the controversial host of the football World Cup, is a key US ally in the Middle East that is rich in gas and oil.

Here are five things to know about the desert peninsula:

- Small but powerful -

Qatar is one of the smallest Arab states with a population of 2.9 million, most of whom are foreign workers.

The country was a British protectorate for 55 years until 1971.

Syria's autonomous Kurdish region has transferred over 600 relatives of suspected jihadists detained at the notorious Al-Hol camp to Iraq, a war monitor and a Kurdish security source said Tuesday.

"The Iraqi government repatriated 161 families, including 659 people, from Al-Hol camp to Iraq," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Iraqi families left Al-Hol camp, which lies less than 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Iraqi border for their home country in a move coordinated by with Iraqi authorities, the monitor said.

Supporters of prominent Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah gathered in London on Tuesday to mark his 200 days on hunger strike, calling on the UK government to do more to secure his release.

A major figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, the British citizen was sentenced by a Cairo court in December to five years in prison after he was convicted along with two others of "broadcasting false news".

Organisers have promised a carbon neutral World Cup next month in Qatar but environmental groups are warning that the tournament will be far more polluting than advertised.

Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatar 2022, said organisers will achieve net-zero emissions for the tournament as a whole "by measuring, mitigating and offsetting all our greenhouse gas emissions".