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".

With one month to go until the opening game, AFP Sport runs the rule over the eight stadiums which will host matches at this year's World Cup in Qatar:

- Lusail, Lusail Iconic Stadium (80,000 capacity)

Italy are still hurting as the European champions sit on the sidelines while the rest of international football's elite prepares to descend on Qatar for the upcoming World Cup.

Roberto Mancini will once again have to watch the tournament on television as he begins another Azzurri rebuild while all eyes are on the Gulf.

And the determined coach of the four-time world champions is not hiding the hurt that missing out for the second time in a row has brought one of football's most important countries.

French cement giant Lafarge SA was slapped with a $778 million fine Tuesday for making millions in payments to the Islamic State and another jihadist group to build its business in Syria.

The US Justice Department said the company and its Syrian subsidiary actively sought the Islamic State (IS) group's help to squeeze out competitors when the radical Islamists controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2013-2014, operating an effective "revenue sharing agreement" with them.

Gas-rich Qatar inaugurated Tuesday its first solar power plant stretching across the desert, a vast site planned to provide up to 10 percent of the tiny Gulf nation's energy supply.

The solar farm in al-Kharsaah, west of the capital Doha, is "one of the biggest" in the Middle East, said Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, the emirate's energy minister and president of QatarEnergy.

Former Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu released his memoir Tuesday, reaffirming an ambition to return to power in the coming elections and retracing his up-and-down relations with US presidents.

Netanyahu, also commonly known as Bibi, is Israel's longest-serving prime minister, with a first term from 1996 to 1999 and an unprecedented 12-year stretch until 2021.

Thousands of Tunisians demonstrated and a general strike shut down the coastal city of Zarzis Tuesday, to demand a renewed search for relatives who went missing during a September migration attempt.

The city has been rocked by days of protests also fuelled by anger over the burial of four people, suspected of being missing Tunisians, in a nearby cemetery for foreign migrants -- allegedly without efforts to identify them.

"We want to know the truth," local activist Ezzedine Msalem told AFP, denouncing "a state crime perpetrated against the inhabitants of Zarzis".

Al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate is gaining ground from rival rebels in Syria's Turkish-held north, on the heels of some of the deadliest inter-rebel fighting in the region in years.

Here is what we know of the deadly flareup, which is altering the balance of power in parts of Syria that still evade government control after more than a decade of war.

- Who is involved? -

Syrian rebel groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's government are mostly confined to the northwestern region of Idlib and northern parts of Aleppo province, near the border with Turkey.

Alarm grew on Tuesday over the wellbeing of Iranian sports climber Elnaz Rekabi after she competed at an event in South Korea without a hijab in what some saw as a gesture of solidarity with the women-led protests at home.

Rekabi, 33, in her first comment since the event at the Asian Championships in Seoul on Sunday, apologised on Instagram for the "concerns" caused and insisted her bare-headed appearance had been "unintentional".

More than a week of inter-rebel fighting in Syria's Turkish-held north has killed 58 people, mostly combatants -- battles that have allowed Al-Qaeda-linked fighters to gain ground, a war monitor said Tuesday.

The clashes since October 8 have been among the deadliest in years, killing 48 rebel fighters and 10 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Fighting has taken place in a volatile area near the Turkish border.