Brussels

BRUSSELS — Somali-born human rights advocate Hassan Shire met Wednesday with Dr. Khadija Ossoble Ali, Somalia’s ambassador to the Benelux Union and the European Union, to discuss strengthening cooperation on human rights, peacebuilding and civil society engagement in Somalia, participants said. The meeting in Brussels focused on how Somali civil society organizations can work more closely with Somalia’s diplomatic missions abroad to advance justice, accountability and sustainable peace. Both sides underscored their…

Clashes erupted in Brussels on Thursday as thousands of farmers protested the European Union’s planned trade deal with the Mercosur bloc, lighting fires and hurling potatoes at riot police who answered with teargas and water cannons outside EU institutions. At least 7,000 farmers converged on the Belgian capital with about 1,000 tractors to pressure EU leaders meeting nearby, where the fate of the EU-Mercosur agreement hung in the balance. A largely peaceful march through the European quarter gave way to tense scenes at the…

In Burundi, the head of diplomacy Albert Shingiro and the ambassador of the European Union, Claude Bochu, surrounded by his fellow Member States on Wednesday morning at a large hotel in Bujumbura, resume political dialogue with a view to lifting sanctions against Gitega. This dialogue, which has since stopped, resumed in February after Access by Nkurunziza's successor to power.…