Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged the United Arab Emirates not to deport migrant building workers for staging a rare strike to demand better pay and conditions.

"It would be scandalous if the UAE deported workers who have taken a courageous stand for their basic rights," HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.

International efforts to organize a Syria peace conference are at fever pitch, but in Jordan's Zaatari camp, Syrian refugees are more concerned with the misery of their daily lives than diplomatic maneuvering.

"To be honest, we're fed up with these conferences, there have been many... without results. We want a radical solution," said Saleh, a former laborer from Syria's southern Daraa province.

An international media watchdog has criticized a UAE court decision to uphold a 10-month jail sentence for a user of microblogging website Twitter who posted about the trial of 94 Islamists.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also called for the immediate release of another man it said was arrested in the United Arab Emirates this month on similar charges.

A shipment of 259 elephant tusks smuggled out of Africa has been seized in the United Arab Emirates, the International Wildlife Fund for Animal Welfare said Tuesday.

The tusks were discovered at a Dubai port in a container shipped from Mombasa, Kenya labelled as wooden furniture.

An Abu Dhabi court will announce on July 2 its verdict in the trial of dozens of Emirati Islamists accused of plotting to seize power in the Gulf country, state news agency WAM reported Tuesday.

A total of 94 dissidents, eight of whom are tried in absentia, are on trial on charges of forming an organization with an aim to seize power.

The United Arab Emirates on Sunday called for political action to stop what it called "the repressive machine" in Damascus, ahead of an international conference aimed at resolving the Syrian conflict.

"We call on all concerned parties to take decisive political action to stop the repressive machine in Damascus," UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said at a news conference with his Australian counterpart Bob Carr.

The vacant Syrian seat at the Arab League has not been given to the opposition, even though its leader addressed the bloc's last summit, the League's secretary general said on Tuesday.

"The opinion was that if they (opposition) form a government, which they have not done yet, then they can become a representative," Nabil al-Arabi told reporters in Dubai.

Five Arab countries and Turkey have reiterated that President Bashar Assad should have no role in the future of Syria, as Russia and the United States proposed a peace conference.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as that of Turkey -- all supporters of the Syrian opposition -- expressed their stand at a meeting late Monday in Abu Dhabi, WAM Emirati news agency said.

Three Emiratis arrested in Tanzania after a deadly attack on a church there a week ago have been freed and are back home, the Al-Khaleej daily reported on Monday.

Tanzanian authorities had arrested them "because they happened, by chance, to be at the site of the attack," the paper said, citing tweets of the United Arab Emirates foreign ministry.

The UAE president began a two-day state visit to Britain on Tuesday, during which he will be treated to ceremonial splendor but will also face questions over claims of torture from three British men jailed in Dubai.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, head of state of the United Arab Emirates, is being hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, west of London.