The euro area in April 2025
Stopping child marriage is key to curbing deadly teen pregnancies: WHO
Each year, more than 21 million adolescent girls in low and middle-income countries become pregnant. About half of these pregnancies are unintended. Nine in 10 adolescent births occur among girls who were married before turning 18.
“Early pregnancies can have serious physical and psychological consequences for girls and young women,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, Director of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research at WHO. “(They) often reflect fundamental inequalities that affect their ability to shape their relationships and their lives.”
Too young to give birth
Teen pregnancy carries serious health risks. These include higher rates of infection, complications, and premature birth. It also disrupts education and limits job opportunities later in life. Many young mothers end up trapped in poverty.
To help prevent teenage pregnancy, WHO is calling on governments to offer better alternatives to child marriage. These include improving access to education, financial services and jobs.
If all girls finished secondary school, child marriage could be slashed by up to two-thirds, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Stolen childhood
There has been global progress. In 2021, one in 25 girls gave birth before age 20. Twenty years earlier, the rate was one in 15. However, big gaps remain. In some countries, nearly one in 10 girls aged 15 to 19 still give birth each year.
“Early marriage denies girls their childhood and has severe consequences for their health,” said Dr Sheri Bastien, Scientist for Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health at WHO.
She emphasized the power of education in transforming girls’ futures. At the same time, both boys and girls need to understand the concept of consent “and challenge the major gender inequalities that continue to drive high rates of child marriage and early pregnancy in many parts of the world.”
The WHO guidelines update advice issued in 2011. They promote comprehensive sexuality education which the UN agency says is essential so that boys and girls know how to use different types of contraception and where to seek advice.
“It has been shown to reduce early pregnancies, delay the onset of sexual activity and improve adolescents’ knowledge about their bodies and reproductive health,” WHO said.
Gaza aid crisis deepens as border closure stretches into 50th day
The UN relief coordination office, OCHA, said on Tuesday that this marks the longest period without aid or commercial supplies entering the Strip since the conflict began in October 2023.
“Right now, it is probably the worst humanitarian situation ever seen throughout the war in Gaza,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told journalists at a briefing in Geneva.
Over 2.1 million Gazans are facing acute shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and clean water.
However, humanitarian supplies are stockpiled just across the border, including nearly 3,000 trucks of life-saving aid prepared by the Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA), which Israeli authorities are refusing to allow in.
Deliberate, man-made suffering
“Hunger is spreading and deepening – deliberate and man-made,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation…humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war.”
The agency warned supplies inside Gaza are nearly all gone, with food stocks running dangerously low and only 250 food parcels left.
Flour has run out. Bakeries are shutting down, hospitals are collapsing without fuel or medicine, and essential items have soared in price.
“Two million people – a majority of women and children – are undergoing collective punishment,” Mr. Lazzarini said.
“The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume.”
Aid effort continues
Despite these conditions, UNRWA continues to operate on the ground, providing water, collecting solid waste, and running vital health services.
Eight health centres and 39 medical points are still providing around 15,000 consultations daily. A blood donation drive to support local hospitals in urgent need of transfusions is also underway.
EDPB annual report 2024: protecting personal data in a changing landscape
Brussels, 23 April – The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published its 2024 Annual Report. The report provides an overview of the EDPB work carried out in 2024 and reflects on important milestones, such as the adoption of the 2024-2027 strategy, the increase in Art. 64(2) consistency opinions and the continued efforts to provide guidance and legal advice.
EDPB Chair Anu Talus said: “As I look back on the work carried out over the past year, I am proud to present our achievements. In 2024, we reaffirmed our commitment to safeguarding individuals’ fundamental rights to privacy and data protection in a fast-changing digital landscape.
We adopted a new strategy and continued to play a central role in providing guidance and ensuring a consistent application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) across Europe. To support understanding and implementation of data protection rights and duties, we expanded our outreach activities by devoting special attention to businesses and non-expert individuals. In addition, we acquired new roles in the framework of the new digital legislations.”
A new EDPB strategy
The EDPB strategy 2024-2027 outlines key priorities and actions to strengthen and modernise data protection across Europe, ensure consistent enforcement of the GDPR, and address emerging challenges, including cross-regulatory cooperation. The strategy also helps strengthen the EDPB’s global presence by engaging with global partners and representing the EU data protection model in key international fora.
EDPB’s central role in providing guidance and legal advice
The number of consistency opinions adopted under Art. 64(2) GDPR significantly increased. In 2024, the Board adopted eight Art. 64 (2) GDPR opinions, including on ‘Consent or Pay’ models used by large online platforms, the use of facial recognition at airports, and the use of personal data to train AI models. These opinions address a matter of general application and ensure consistency prior to enforcement.
The EDPB actively participated in legislative discussions by issuing statements highlighting data protection considerations and impacts. For example, the Board adopted statements on the draft procedural regulation for GDPR enforcement, and on the DPAs role in the AI Act framework.
The EDPB has also expanded its general guidance to help organisations achieve and maintain GDPR compliance. To this end, the Board adopted four new guidelines in 2024, such as the guidelines on legitimate interest and on data transfers to third country authorities.
Proactive engagement with stakeholders
In 2024, the EDPB continued to engage with stakeholders to foster open dialogue and mutual understanding between regulators, industry representatives, civil society organisations, and academic institutions. To collect relevant insights from organisations that have expertise on data protection-related topics, the Board launched public consultations on its adopted guidelines and organised two stakeholder events, related to the upcoming guidelines on “Consent or Pay” models and to the preparation of the Opinion on AI models.
Contributing to cross-regulatory cooperation
New digital legislations, including the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the AI Act, the Data Governance Act (DGA) and the Data Act, build on GDPR. To ensure consistency of application between the GDPR and these acts, the EDPB actively contributed to cross-regulatory cooperation by engaging with European and international partners, including the EU AI Office and the high-level group on the DMA.
Making the GDPR understandable and practical for all
Finally, the EDPB continued its efforts to provide information on the GDPR to a broader and non-expert audience by presenting it in a clear and non-technical language. To this end, the EDPB made the Data Protection Guide for Small Business available in 18 languages. In addition, the Board has launched a series of summaries of EDPB guidelines to help non-expert individuals and organisations identify in an easier way the most important points to consider.
Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe will represent the Eurogroup at the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group in Washington, DC
President of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, is travelling to Washington D.C. to attend the Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World bank Group. Source link
Gaza: Destruction of vital lifting gear halts search for thousands buried under rubble
The destruction of key heavy machinery on Tuesday following reported Israeli airstrikes has brought rescue and recovery efforts to a standstill, making it even harder to reach the estimated 11,000 bodies still trapped under the debris.
According to local authorities, the strikes put a halt to all solid waste and debris removal operations, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at a briefing in New York.
Until recently, bulldozers and other excavation equipment had been used in painstaking efforts to recover bodies from the wreckage.
One bulldozer operated by Atif Nasr – who before the war worked building and repairing roads – had become vital in the grim task of extracting the remains of loved ones from the rubble.
He was interviewed by a UN News correspondent in Gaza before the strike but now his grim but vital work has come to a standstill after his vehicle was destroyed.
Destroyed heavy equipment, including bulldozers.
Months trapped in rubble
The Dahdouh family managed to recover the remains of their son, Omar, from the ruins of their home, almost a year after he was killed in an airstrike which levelled their seven-story building.
Standing at the site, Omar’s brother, Moayad, shared the family’s ordeal.
“His body remained trapped under the rubble for nearly a year. After the war, we tried to retrieve him, but with the building so large and with no heavy machinery available, it was impossible.
“We searched everywhere for a bulldozer to reach the ground floor – where Omar had been – but during the war, Israeli forces destroyed or burned all the bulldozers or excavators that could have helped us.”
A decent burial
In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the Dajani family continues to live in what’s left of their destroyed home, where the bodies of three of their children remain buried.
Their father Ali remembers the time they died with a heavy heart.
“We fled to the beach area during the bombings. When we returned, the house was gone – and our children were still under the debris. We are forced to live here, but this is not life. It is unbearable,” he told our correspondent.
“We have no clean water, no food. We are lost. All we ask is to recover our children’s bodies. To bury the dead is sacred. That is all we want.”
Just days ago, Mr. Dajani spoke as diggers worked nearby to clear away the debris. That effort, too, has come to a halt for now.
A mounting humanitarian crisis
The UN estimates that approximately 92 per cent of all residential buildings in Gaza – around 436,000 homes – have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the conflict.
The resulting debris amounts to nearly 50 million tonnes – an overwhelming quantity of rubble that would take decades to remove under current conditions.
Humanitarian organizations warn that the delay in debris removal and body recovery is not only deepening psychological trauma across Gaza but also threatens to become a public health and environmental catastrophe.
