Freed Australian Al-Jazeera reporter Peter Greste on Thursday called for the international community to continue supporting his colleagues in Egypt, stressing that they were still on trial.

Greste was detained along with two colleagues, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, in December 2013, before he was deported last month after intense diplomatic pressure.

Qatar's exerted efforts to release the abducted Lebanese servicemen, who were taken hostage by al-Qaida-affilaite al-Nusra Front, led to a significant progress as Doha called on Turkey to mediate the release of those taken captive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

As Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday that three Qatari officers are following up the case of the abducted servicemen with al-Nusra Front since August.

A Qatari court on Monday upheld a death sentence against a local man convicted of the murder of British school teacher Lauren Patterson.

Doha's Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence against Badr Hashim Khamis Abdallah al-Jabar as Patterson's mother Alison, who had traveled from Britain for the hearing, watched on.

Lebanon reportedly rejects to include Arab inmates in a prisoners swap deal with al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front in exchange for the release of servicemen taken hostage by the group.

Diplomatic sources told As Safir newspaper published on Friday that al-Nusra Front, which handed over a list that include 40 inmates, is open to negotiations.

Qatar will stick to its $200-billion (190 billion-euro) infrastructure spending splurge, the energy-rich Gulf state's premier vowed on Sunday, despite the fall in global oil prices.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani told business leaders at a Doha finance conference that the kingdom would maintain its plans to spend heavily on development projects in the runup to the football World Cup in 2022.

The United Arab Emirates will expel 70 Lebanese nationals, mostly Shiites, within the next 24 hours, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil said Friday.

"The ministry of foreign affairs was informed by the Lebanese embassy in the Emirates that 70 Lebanese will be deported by the authorities in the next 24 hours," Bassil told Agence France Presse.

Talks aimed at pulling Yemen out of crisis are open to the Shiite Huthi militia which seized power in Sanaa last month, Qatar's Foreign Minister Khalid al-Attiyah said on Thursday.

The Huthis have opposed any change in venue for U.N.-brokered talks, which broke down after Western-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi escaped from house arrest in Sanaa last month.

The emir of Qatar on Thursday met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for surprise talks in the capital Ankara, a Turkish presidential official said. 

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani was holding closed-door talks at Erdogan's newly built presidential palace in Ankara, the official told Agence France Presse, without elaborating further.

An envoy from Qatar was in Beirut on Thursday to mediate in the case of the Lebanese servicemen taken hostage by jihadists last year, al-Mustaqbal daily reported.

Government sources told the newspaper the mediator's arrival in the Lebanese capital was a sign that the negotiations on the captives have made a serious development.

Qatar on Tuesday launched a project to build 1,000 homes in the Gaza Strip to house Palestinians displaced by last summer's war between Hamas and Israel.

The Gulf state, which hosts the exiled leadership of Gaza's Islamist rulers, was the largest single donor at an October conference in Cairo to raise funds to help rebuild the blockaded territory.