French President Francois Hollande will head to the United Arab Emirates next week where he will push the Gulf state to buy Rafale fighter jets, a French diplomatic source said Wednesday.

France is keen to make its first foreign sale of the Rafale, which has struggled to find buyers to support a project that has cost tens of billions of euros.

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Wednesday ahead of U.S.-Russia talks on Syria that President Bashar Assad's new plan for his embattled country is "more sectarian, more one-sided" than previous initiatives.

He spoke as the first major prisoner swap in the 21-month conflict took place, with rebels freeing 48 Iranians in exchange for more than 2,000 regime detainees in a drawn-out deal with Damascus reportedly brokered by Turkey, Qatar and Iran.

Syrian ministers have taken on specific tasks for implementing President Bashar Assad's plan to end the country's raging civil war, state news agency SANA said on Wednesday.

The plan, announced by Assad on Sunday, is being rolled out by the government despite it being rejected by opposition groups within and without the violence-wracked country.

An Egyptian journalist accused of trespassing and filming in a military zone on the border with the Gaza Strip has been released, but only until his trial continues next week, his lawyer said on Wednesday.

The army arrested Mohammed Sabry, a freelance video journalist and activist who opposed military trials, in the border town of Rafah in the eastern Sinai Peninsula while he was working for Reuters news agency, Amnesty International said.

Four people were killed in clashes pitting Toubou tribesmen against a brigade linked to the Libyan army in the southern town of Kufra, a military official told AFP on Wednesday.

"Four Toubou tribesmen were killed on Tuesday in clashes against Shield Libya," an army force made up of former rebels, the official said.

Israel has quietly "legalized" an unauthorized settlement outpost in the West Bank, the Peace Now settlement watchdog said on Wednesday, in the sixth such move within a year.

Peace Now's Hagit Ofran said the move to legalize the Nofei Nehemia outpost, south of the Palestinian city of Nablus, was taken "a few days ago" in contravention of Israel's commitments under the Middle East peace roadmap.

Egypt's Islamist Nur party elected a new chief on Wednesday after a split within the powerful ultraconservative Salafi movement splintered the party ahead of parliamentary elections.

The party at a general assembly selected Yunis Makhyun, who was a member of parliament until a court annulled the Islamist-dominated house in June, in a vote shown live on television.

Kuwait's lower court rejected a petition by pro-opposition private television channel al-Youm on Wednesday against its closure by the government last month, the channel's lawyer said.

"We have not seen the reasons for the court's ruling. We plan to file an appeal against the verdict in the coming few days," Nawaf Sari told AFP.

Five members of the "February 20" protest movement saw their sentences reduced on Wednesday to six months on appeal, after they were jailed for taking part in a non-authorized demonstration.

The five young men had variously been given prisons terms of between eight and 10 months in September on charges that also included attacking public officials in the course of duty.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused anti-government protesters who have blocked off a key trade route for two weeks of abusing their freedoms and causing "chaos", in a speech on Wednesday.

Maliki said security forces could intervene to end the protests, which have swept Sunni-majority provinces in western and northern Iraq since December 23, but also renewed an offer to consider some of the demonstrators' demands.