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".
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".
