Eurozone jobless rate at record 12%; Extreme poverty 'could be eradicated'; Why first names are just for friends

1 Eurozone jobless rate at record 12% (BBC) The rate of unemployment in the eurozone has hit a record high of 12%, official figures have shown. The number of people unemployed in the 17 member states rose by 33,000 during February, to hit 19.07 million, the statistics agency Eurostat said. The highest jobless rates were 26.4% in Greece, although this figure was from December, and 26.3% in Spain.

The lowest unemployment rates recorded by Eurostat were in Austria (4.8%) and Germany (5.4%), both unchanged from January. The overall unemployment rate for the eurozone in January was revised up from 11.9% to 12%. The fresh high in the unemployment rate "is further confirmation of the underlying weakness of the economy", said Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics. "The rise in unemployment was the 22nd in a row, making this labour market downturn the most prolonged since the early 1990s."

Youth unemployment remains an area of particular concern, with 188,000 people aged under 25 joining the ranks of the unemployed in February. More than half the workforce in this age group are now out work in Spain and Greece, and almost a quarter out of a job across the eurozone as a whole. There was further gloomy news from the eurozone's manufacturing sector, as a survey indicated that manufacturing activity fell to a three-month low in March.

2 Extreme poverty ‘could be eradicated’ (Dan Roberts in The Guardian) Extreme global poverty could be eradicated by the end of the next decade under optimistic new targets unveiled by the World Bank that have divided development experts. The bank's president, Jim Yong Kim, claimed signs of recovery in the global economy meant there was now an "opportunity to create a world free from the stain of poverty" by 2030.

"We are at an auspicious moment in history, when the successes of past decades and an increasingly favourable economic outlook combine to give developing countries a chance – for the first time ever – to end extreme poverty within a generation," he said in a speech in Washington.

The World Bank’s upbeat projections, defining extreme poverty as the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 per day, come as governments and international institutions prepare to set new targets to update the 15-year Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000.

Faster-than-expected growth in China and some developing economies has helped the UN meet parts of its existing target for halving poverty ahead of time, but the approaching deadline for setting new priorities has sparked a fierce debate in the development community. Critics accused the World Bank of being "very unambitious" and obsessed with economic growth rather than tackling inequality after the leak of planning documents in March that were heavily focused on free market orthodoxy as the primary solution to global poverty.

3 Why first names are just for friends (Katharine Whitehorn in The Guardian) OK, we all sling first names around more than they did in the past, but we still have surnames for strangers and first names for friends. So it's no wonder we're always irritated by someone from a call-centre presuming to sound like a friend. Waiters think they are being winningly friendly if they greet you at breakfast by name, and Starbucks staff, who put your name on your cup , are trying to do the same; but do they really think we're touched by their friendliness?

In fact, it's more likely to be the opposite. In the book You Just Don’t Understand, linguist Deborah Tannen showed that actually, when a doctor calls you Mary but expects you to call him Doctor, he may think he's just being friendly, but actually he's assuming his superiority, just as an august uncle who calls a child Jimmy does not expect to get "Thanks Johnny" in reply.

I always feel patronised when somebody's junior employee – especially if male – uses my first name; it always has a ring of "Now little lady" about it; and if I've been called out of my bath by some stranger who is trying to sell me something, his impertinent use of my Christian name makes me hate his blasted product more than ever. You might think I'd welcome people using Katharine, since I go by two surnames, my married name and the one I was born with. But actually, friends call me – no, I'm not saying, just in case.