Egypt on Sunday expelled three foreign journalists working as freelancers for Al-Jazeera television's English channel, the state news agency MENA reported.

Airport security officials, quoted by MENA, said the three men left on a flight to London.

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) spied on the internal communications of France's foreign ministry and diplomats and those of Qatar-based television station al-Jazeera, a German magazine said Sunday.

Der Spiegel reported that in 2010 the NSA monitored the internal computer network of France's diplomats and that of the ministry itself by accessing so-called virtual private networks (VPN), a tool that generally offers a secure internet connection to users.

Health authorities in Qatar on Tuesday announced the first case of MERS coronavirus in the Gulf state, with a 59-year-old man infected.

The patient, a Qatari, is in stable condition, they said.

China, the United States and Qatar were accused of environmental plunder on Tuesday as green activists marked "Earth Overshoot Day," the date at which mankind has exhausted a year's budget of natural resources.

"In just over eight months, we have used as much nature as our planet can regenerate this year," Global Footprint Network, an international thinktank which calculates the metric, said in a press release.

Qatar, a main backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, strongly condemned a bloody crackdown in Cairo on Wednesday by security forces against supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.

"Qatar strongly denounces the means by which peaceful protesters in Rabaa al-Adawiya camp and Al-Nahda square have been dealt with and which led to the killing of several unarmed innocent people among them," a foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement published on the official QNA agency.

Qatar on Friday announced it has shipped a consignment of liquefied natural gas as aid for the Egyptian people, in its first such gesture since president Mohammed Morsi's overthrow.

State news agency QNA said the LNG shipment was loaded on Thursday and was headed for Egypt on a gas tanker.

Qatar's new emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on Friday landed in Saudi Arabia on his first foreign foray since acceding to the throne in June, state news agency SPA said.

Sheikh Tamim flew in to the port city of Jeddah and will meet King Abdullah and perform the omra pilgrimage to nearby Mecca, Islam's holiest site, the agency said.

A Qatar Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner resumed flights on Wednesday after being grounded for several days because "technical components required replacement," the company said.

"The aircraft flew today 31st July 2013 to (the start point of) one of Qatar Airways' four Boeing 787 operated routes," it said in a statement.

Egypt was on edge Thursday ahead of rival protests by the military and Islamists, as the government declared a "war on terrorism" to end violence convulsing the country since president Mohammed Morsi's overthrow.

Police said they were planning massive reinforcements to secure Friday's rallies, which raise the prospect of further bloodshed between Islamists demanding Morsi's reinstatement and an array of opponents including the military.

Gas-rich Qatar, a strong backer of Arab Spring uprisings and supporter of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, has joined international calls for his release from detention while expressing concern at violence sweeping Egypt.

State news agency QNA late Tuesday quoted a foreign ministry official as saying Qatar had voiced "concern over the developments in Egypt, especially with the increasing number of civilian victims.”