The Gulf Cooperation Council insisted Thursday that talks on ending Yemen's conflict be brokered by the regional body and held in Riyadh rather than a neutral venue as sought by Iran.

Tehran has called for the U.N. talks between Yemen's political factions to be held somewhere other than in any of the countries taking part in a Saudi-led military campaign against Shiite rebels.

For seven years, Pralhad Ghimire sent back money from his job as a scaffolder in Qatar to build a home just outside the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

Now the two-storey, eight-roomed house is gone and Ghimire -- like many Nepalese workers abroad -- can't even afford to fly home to help his family.

French group Dassault Aviation is poised to sign a 6.3-billion-euro ($7-billion) deal with Qatar for 36 of its Rafale fighter jets, the presidency said Thursday, in the third foreign order this year.

Having struggled for years to sell any of its Rafale jets abroad, Dassault has recently scored several lucrative, high-profile contracts with Egypt, India, and now Qatar.

Negotiations with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) reached a dead end after the group placed tough conditions to release the servicemen in its captivity, media reports said on Friday.

According to al-Mustaqbal newspaper, ISIL links the release of the hostages to the operation carried out by the Lebanese army on Lebanon's eastern border with Syria.

Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri is expected to travel to Washington on Monday for a one week visit, al-Joumhouria daily reported.

The agenda of his trip is still not complete, the newspaper said Friday.

Support for freedom of speech has dropped across a number of Middle Eastern and North African countries since 2013, according to a survey by the Qatari branch of a U.S. university.

In Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, most notably, Tunisia, the numbers of people backing the principle of free speech by social media users fell, said Northwestern University in Qatar's (NU-Q) "Media Use Survey 2015."

A Qatari court sentenced a Kenyan security guard to life in prison on Tuesday for the murder of American teacher Jennifer Brown in 2012.

Alvine Moseti Anyona is expected to serve up to 20 years -- a typical period for those sentenced to life in the Gulf state -- and will then be immediately deported.

Lebanese businessmen in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are planning to visit Gulf countries to announce their support for the Saudi-led coalition against Huthi rebels in Yemen, al-Liwaa daily reported on Tuesday.

The tour of the Lebanese expatriates is aimed at throwing their weight behind the decision of Saudi King Salman last month to carry out air strikes against the Shiite rebels to defend Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansur Hadi's government, said the report.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri discussed with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani the importance of unity against Huthi rebels in Yemen.

“The one-hour meeting (in Doha) tackled the latest developments in the region,” said a statement issued by Hariri's press office.

The American embassy in the Gulf state of Qatar has confirmed in a statement on its website that a member of its security staff was injured in an assault.

It is unclear what prompted the incident, which happened on Thursday at the embassy in the capital, Doha.