The EU hosts a "milestone" international conference on Somalia on Monday aimed at underpinning economic and political recovery after two decades of bloody civil war.

Some 50 high-level delegations from Africa, Europe, the Gulf and elsewhere are expected for the "New Deal in Somalia" event, gathering President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, other Somali leaders, world aid groups and global finance institutions.

Freed Italian journalist Domenico Quirico and Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin on Monday said they were beaten, starved and subjected to mock executions during their five-month kidnap ordeal in Syria.

The two men, who were released on Sunday, also said they had overheard their captors talking about rebel involvement in a poison-gas attack, although Quirico said he had no way of verifying that information.

Nine EU countries led by France and Belgium called Thursday to list the personal information of airline passengers as part of efforts to curb terrorism and prevent young people going to conflict zones.

"One of the most useful tools to trace such people, when they go to Syria or elsewhere and when they come back, would be a PNR (Passenger Name Record) system," French Interior Minister Manuel Valls and his Belgian counterpart Joelle Milquet said in a statement.

Hizbullah international relations official Ammar Moussawi held talks on Wednesday with Belgian Ambassador to Lebanon Colette Taquet in the first meeting of its kind between party and European officials after the European Union blacklisted Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

Hizbullah said in a statement that the talks addressed the Syrian crisis and its impact on neighboring countries, especially Lebanon.

Philippe ascended the throne of Belgium as its seventh king on Sunday amid National Day celebrations marked by hopes the fragile nation can remain united.

"I swear to abide by the constitution and the laws of the Belgian people," Philippe, 53, and dressed in full military uniform, said in the country's three languages -- French, Flemish and German.

Albert II, king of a sharply divided Belgium, called on its people Saturday to stick together as he bade them a formal farewell ahead of his abdication after 20 years on the throne.

The king said that as he prepared to step down Sunday, his first wish was that Belgium, split between a Flemish-speaking north and a French south, "retains its cohesion" and builds on the gains made over the past 40 years of change.

The tiny Baltic state of Latvia received the green light from its European partners Tuesday to become the 18th member of the eurozone from next year.

In what Latvia's prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis described as a "good day for Latvia and also for Europe," the ECOFIN council -- made up of the economy and finance ministers of the EU's 28 member states -- gave formal approval to the country's euro membership.

Belgium's King Albert II announced his abdication Wednesday in favor of his son, saying that after two decades at the helm of the tiny country he felt too old and frail to continue.

"I intend to abdicate on July 21," Belgium's national day, the sovereign said in a broadcast to the nation from the royal palace.

A young Belgian man has been killed in Syria while fighting for an Islamist group and his brother was arrested on his return home from the war-stricken country, newspapers said Monday.

Belgian authorities and Islamic groups have become increasingly concerned about a growing number of young men leaving to fight in Syria against the regime of President Bashar Assad, some of whom are suspected of war crimes.

The Belgian Roman Catholic Church said Wednesday it had received more than 300 complaints of sexual abuse of minors in 2012.

Three quarters of the 307 dossiers opened were in northern Flanders, the staunchly Catholic Dutch-speaking and larger half of Belgium.