Soaring gold price briefly lifted shares of mining firms in Australia, the world's second-largest bullion producer after South Africa. Newcrest Mining Ltd, Australia's biggest gold miner, gained 1.5 percent before dipping.

"We're there mate, we've done it," said Darren Heathcote, head of trading at N M Rothschild in Sydney.

Spot gold hit a high of $602.40 an ounce before easing to $601.60/602.40 by 0304 GMT, higher than $598.80/599.60 an ounce late in New York on Monday.

Gold, considered a hedge against uncertainties during troubled times, has risen more than 16 percent this year, about 41 percent in the past 12 months, and 100 percent in four years.

The metal has also been rallying due to rising oil prices.

"The signals are still strong, people are still happy to buy in dips. Whilst we're below $600, the range is probably somewhere around $597.50 and $600. But if we break above $600, we're probably looking to test that $604.50 area," Heathcote said.

Investors have turned to surging commodities markets for investment alternatives to equities, bonds and foreign exchange, where returns have not been as good, said dealers.

Tensions in the Middle East over Iran's nuclear intentions, uncertainty about the dollar's outlook, worries about rising energy costs and speculation that central banks will diversify into metals have also boosted gold's appeal, they said.

U.S. crude oil futures headed toward $69 a barrel on Tuesday due to rising friction over Iran's nuclear program and continuing supply disruptions in Nigeria.

"Geo-political tensions look capable of bringing about further tests of the $70 a barrel region in the weeks ahead," said Kevin Norrish, an oil analyst at Barclays Capital. In New York, Nymex West Texas Intermediate rose $1.35 to settle at $68.74 a barrel. IPE Brent for May hit an all-time peak of $68.90, up $1.61, before closing at $68.75, up $1.46.

Crude prices were also supported by aggressive rhetoric from militants in Nigeria who have threatened to kill workers who have returned to oil platforms that were shut by earlier attacks. About 0.5m barrels a day of Nigerian output has been lost because of attacks by militants.

Royal Dutch Shell, operator of about 90 per cent of the lost Nigerian output, said it aimed to restart production in Nigeria soon but the company has declined to return staff to the region until the violence abates.

The increase in global tensions in the oil market helped propel gold higher, with bullion rising to a fresh 25-year high of $598.10 a troy ounce before easing to $592.60/$593.40 by mid-afternoon in New York.

Traders said it appeared to be only a matter of time before gold breached the $600 a troy ounce level.

"Although the outlook remains positive, gold could pause in consolidation below $600, gathering sufficient momentum to break psychological resistance and resuming its inexorable march towards $625," said analysts at Standard Bank.

Continued speculation about the imminent launch of an exchange traded fund helped push silver to $12.50 a troy ounce, its highest level since August 1983. The metal eased back to settle at $12.38/$12.41 by late afternoon in New York.

Dealers reported that a fresh wave of buying by funds had pushed base metals prices higher. Copper moved to within a whisker of $6,000 a tonne, rising $215 to a record high of $5,940 a tonne after a further fall in LME inventories, which have fallen to critically low levels globally. Zinc jumped $104 to another record of $2,915 a tonne. Aluminium rose $58 to $2,598 a tonne.

The No. 2 U.S. bank will close a call center in Dover, Delaware, eliminating 630 jobs, spokeswoman Betsy Weinberger said. It will also close a center in Horsham, Pennsylvania, which employs 600 people, and one in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which employs 670, Weinberger said.

Bank of America has said it plans to cut about 6,000 jobs across both companies following its $34.2 billion purchase on January 1 of MBNA.

The purchase made Bank of America the largest U.S. credit card issuer. MBNA had been based in Wilmington, Delaware.

Fairbank, 55, pulled in $56 million from options in 2004. Capital One says Fairbank had to exercise options last year because they were set to expire. The company also noted its 24.6% annual shareholder returns the past decade.

Lifted by Wall Street's three-year bull market, 14 consecutive quarters of rising corporate earnings, mergers and turnover in the corner office, scores of other CEOs enjoyed less stratospheric but still Olympian pay packages.

Median 2005 pay among chief executives running most of the nation's 100 largest companies soared 25% to $17.9 million, dwarfing the 3.1% average gain by typical American workers, USA TODAY found in its annual analysis of CEO pay.

"Overall, we're still seeing solid cash and bonus payouts," says Ian Singer of pay-tracker eComp Data Services, which compiled data from
Securities and Exchange Commission filings for USA TODAY's study. "I don't think that's ever going to change when you're at the jumbo level."

Compensation includes salary, bonus, incentives, stock, stock-option gains and potential returns from fresh option grants. Median gains were bolstered by larger stock grants, long-term incentive pay, supplemental retirement pay and options gains.

Failure also played a role: The golden parachutes for ousted CEOS and huge sign-on packages of their replacements lifted median CEO pay and promised to set benchmarks for future pay packages.

Coming off 2004's 25% jump in big-company CEO pay, the sharp rise in executive compensation perplexes corporate governance experts who expected temperance following scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, increasing scrutiny by regulators and shareholder activists, and starting this year, new accounting rules requiring expensing of stock options.

"Corporate boards are under more pressure to ensure there's a linkage to performance and shareholder returns, but they'll still be looking for ways to maximize pay packages to stay competitive," says Carol Bowie, head of governance research at proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services.

One of 2005's largest windfalls so far among those reported during this proxy season came not to a CEO, but to Omid Kordestani, head of global sales at Internet search engine Google. He exercised stock options for a $287.9 million gain. Neither Kordestani, 42, nor Google responded to calls.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page - who requested in 2004 that their salaries be reduced to $1 and refused 2006 raises - exercised no options. But they own big Google stakes; Brin and Page each own stock worth about $12.5 billion.

Another huge payout came to Analog Devices CEO Jerald Fishman, who cashed out $144.7 million from his deferred compensation plan and made another $4.3 million in salary, bonus and options gains.

Hires, fires = big $$$

Whatever the company size, rising turnover in the corner office could prompt higher pay benchmarks to attract new hires. Employment tracker Challenger Grey & Christmas says 2005 CEO departures doubled to 1,322, vs. 663 in 2004. Through the first quarter of 2006, 337 CEOs were replaced.

Among new CEOs with big pay packages:

- Broadcom's Scott McGregor, hired by the semiconductor maker in January 2005, received $7.7 million in pay and bonus, plus stock options with a potential value of $101.9 million. Broadcom says McGregor's compensation is "competitive, fair and reasonable," citing Broadcom's 46% stock price gain.

- 3M's James McNerney, who replaced Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher in June, received $25.3 million in Boeing stock to compensate him for losing potential payouts at 3M. His last six months at 3M proved lucrative, too. He got almost $41 million - $8.4 million in compensation and $32.4 million exercising 3M stock options. There was no golden parachute for Stonecipher, forced out after the revelation of an affair with a subordinate. But Stonecipher made $39.5 million, including $11 million in incentive pay and $26.9 million exercising stock options.

- John Mack, who replaced ousted Morgan Stanley chief Philip Purcell in June, pulled in more than $68 million, including $37.8 million in restricted stock and $30 million exercising stock options.

Purcell's golden parachute was valued at about $52 million, including a $44 million bonus.

Morgan Stanley co-president Stephen Crawford, who also left, received a settlement worth $36 million.

Such payouts - whose key provisions are largely negotiated as part of employment contracts - have become boilerplate as corporate boards agree to lucrative retention agreements designed to prevent CEO "flight risk," says Ira Kay of pay consultant Watson Wyatt and author of Myths and Realities of Executive Compensation, due out later this year.

"It's a seller's market, and executives have real market power," Kay says. "Most directors are as obsessed with retaining their CEOs as they are satisfying shareholders. Directors know if they have the right team in place, they have to do whatever they can to retain it."

Most compensation advisers and corporate governance experts doubt a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal requiring boards to provide more clarity, justification and disclosure about pay, perks and supplemental retirement will curb CEO pay. "You'll still see extraordinarily egregious deals going down," says Bowie.

New accounting rules that require companies to expense stock options beginning this year aren't likely to limit new option grants to CEOs, either.

"We'll see fewer options granted to lower and middle management employees, but there'll be no effect on option grants to CEOs," says John England, who advises directors for compensation consultant Towers Perrin. "Most directors still believe options are an important piece of senior management's compensation."

Boards are under more scrutiny from shareholders and regulators. Bowie says shareholders will vote on nearly 150 proposals aimed at making boards more accountable. Measures include director term limits, annual elections and provisions to remove directors receiving less than 50% of votes cast by shareholders.

There are about as many ballot measures regarding directors as are being floated to curb CEO pay. Yet, most resolutions are non-binding and ignored by directors, even those overwhelmingly approved by shareholders. Most companies oppose provisions such as annual director elections, which tend to make boards less insular and beholden to management.

Some reformers believe fundamental changes in the way CEOs are compensated won't occur until corporate directors are held more accountable. "They're not sufficiently dependent on shareholders, who lack real power to remove them from boards," says Harvard University professor Lucian Bebchuk, who decries the lack of connection between pay and performance and is pushing for bylaw changes at several firms.

Increased shareholder activism is putting more pressure on some boards to weigh compensation practices, such as covering CEOs' income taxes, more closely, says Temin & Co. pay consultant Bruce Ellig, author of The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation.

Moreover, some boards have begun acquiescing to investor pressure. Prompted by the Teamsters union, Coca-Cola said it would seek shareholder approval of future executive severance packages. The move comes after the soft-drink giant fitted former CEO Douglas Ivester with a golden parachute worth $119 million after four years and successor Douglas Daft, who lasted three, $36 million in severance.

Other companies are already providing more extensive compensation disclosure to shareholders, and board advisers say there's far more backroom discussion among directors about CEO pay.

"There's a change that outsiders wouldn't see - directors asking about the cost implications, disclosure implications, what could go wrong with a plan that pays too much for performance that isn't justified," says England. "Board members are saying they don't want their reputation besmirched."

Overcompensating?

For now, among many corporate boards, looking to enhance pay for already handsomely compensated CEOs remains the norm.

United Technologies' George David has made nearly $300 million in compensation since he became CEO in 1994, including about $40 million in salary and bonuses and more than $250 million from stock option gains, according to SEC filings. He holds exercisable options valued at $138 million. Directors boosted his salary 42% to $1.7 million in 2005, saying it was his first raise since 1998, and awarded fresh options valued at $24 million.

Directors cited his long tenure, leadership, an Institutional Investor magazine survey ranking him tops among his aerospace and defense electronics industry peers and the company's "exceptional" performance. Most longtime shareholders might not quibble: They've gained about 18% annually under David.

"We can all argue how we value CEOs and if their pay makes sense," says Alan Johnson, a principal in compensation consultant Johnson Associates. "But we chronically overvalue CEOs. Until that's addressed, higher pay will continue."

At poor-performing companies, some boards are ignoring performance guidelines to reward executives. Sun Microsystems, down more than 90% from its 2000 peak, gave CEO Scott McNealy a $1.1 million "discretionary" bonus last year, even though Sun failed to meet income or earnings targets. The board cited a "one-time need" to recognize McNealy's performance. McNealy gained $11.8 million exercising options. Already Sun's largest individual shareholder, McNealy also received fresh options worth $7.6 million.

"There's a point where a board should tell the CEO, 'You have enough to incentivize you,' " says Paul Hodgson, pay analyst for The Corporate Library, a governance watchdog group. "But it's still business as usual at most companies. It's all about keeping up with the Joneses. There's still a disconnect between paying for performance and actually delivering it. There's no shame factor."

We continue to have concerns about the identification of misstatements in federal agencies' prior year financial statements. Frequent restatements to correct errors can undermine public trust and confidence in both the entity and all responsible parties. The material internal control weaknesses discussed in this testimony serve to increase the risk that additional errors may occur and not be identified on a timely basis by agency management or their auditors, resulting in further restatements.

Skilling faces 28 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. Enron founder Kenneth Lay faces six counts of fraud and conspiracy. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In his testimony, Skilling told the court that he felt Enron was in "very good condition" when he resigned in August 2001.

Enron, once the seventh-largest company in the United States, went bankrupt in December 2001 following revelations that it had hidden huge losses by using fraudulent partnership deals. The losses were kept off the company's balance sheet.

After the losses were revealed, the company's stock plunged, wiping out billions of dollars of investors' money.

Former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow testified earlier in the trial that he used the partnerships to buoy Enron's earnings with Skilling's knowledge.

Prosecutors will have their first opportunity to question Skilling during cross-examination, which is not expected to begin until the middle of the week, at the earliest.

These reports in the past month symbolize a welcome trend during an economic expansion that at first offered only tepid job gains, both in quantity and quality.

This good news about the breadth of job creation comes against a backdrop of labor-market anxiety that has persisted despite the economy's solid overall footing. Competition from imported goods, the threat of outsourcing services abroad, and a controversial influx of illegal laborers are just some of the forces that make many workers worried about their future.

Creating good jobs - the kinds that can keep American living standards rising - appears likely to remain a challenge. But the current employment picture at least indicates movement in a positive direction.

"We're creating lots of all kinds of jobs, across many industries, occupations, and pay scales," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. But he adds: "If your skill sets are rusty, or at the low end of the skill range, you're going to have a tougher time."

The economy added 211,000 jobs in March, according to a Labor Department report Friday - a solid showing about on par with expectations. The unemployment rate fell a notch, to 4.7 percent.

The new jobs still include plenty at the low end: An analysis by Merrill Lynch finds that some 40 percent of the net gain in March came in two areas known for low pay: retail services and leisure/hospitality, which includes restaurants.

But this is just part of a broader tapestry. Management and professional occupations are employing 1.2 million more people this month than a year ago - or about 1 in 3 new jobs in America. This is the highest-paying of five broad categories tracked by the Labor Department. Not all of them are CEOs or engineers, but the median paycheck for full-time workers in this category is $937 a week, far above the US median of $651.

The construction industry continues to hammer out more than its share of new jobs. It accounts for about 6.4 percent of US jobs, but has provided 14.4 percent of the past year's job growth. The quality of construction jobs is mixed - often offering higher hourly pay than the US median but with lower benefits.

Even the manufacturing sector, which has long offered blue-collar workers a measure of middle-class prosperity, appears to be stabilizing after a period of heavy job losses. Despite downsizing in the automotive industry, 175,000 more people are employed in production occupations today than a year ago.

"As this recovery gets under way, professional services have begun adding jobs fairly broadly," says Jared Bernstein, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington.

EPI tracks the weighting of higher- versus lower-paying jobs that are being added to the economy. For much of the current expansion, which began at the end of 2001, that indicator has been negative.

In the past year, however, it has turned positive, meaning that the new jobs in the economy are the kind that tend to pull average wages up, not down.

Beyond professional services, one example may be construction. The housing market is cooling, but commercial building is heating up.

"More of the work will be in nonresidential construction," predicts Michael Carliner, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders. That could mean demand for higher skills, such as equipment operation, that boost pay.

The question, however, is how much of today's strengthening labor market represents cyclical trends, rather than long-term gains.

At this point, perhaps midway into an expansion phase, it's not unusual to see the job mix improve and pay to rise in new and existing jobs alike. "I would expect wages and compensation to increase faster," says Rae Hederman of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

How long that pattern lasts will depend in some measure on the Federal Reserve, which is now trying to decide whether to raise interest rates further. Setting rates too high, some experts warn, could slow the economy and dampen job growth.

The labor market's gains are beginning to take on the shape of a barbell, with growth weighted heavily at the two ends of the pay scale. During the current expansion, the bulk of new jobs have come in either the highest-paid of five broad occupational categories - management and professional - or the lowest-paid, services. Together the two sectors now account for more than half of all jobs. (The other three major categories are sales and office work, construction and natural resources, and production/transportation.)

The economy's overall share of jobs with strong pay and benefits has failed to grow during the past quarter century, even though workers today have higher skills and more technology to make them productive, says John Schmitt, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal research institute in Washington. That's a break with the past, he says, when "wages typically tracked closely with productivity."

The pinch. Next semester, Nguyen's financial-reality spiel will be even harder. Even as tuition is rising, forcing students to borrow more, Congress has doubled the financial whammy by raising interest rates on education loans. Students who take out a Stafford loan this September will have to pay a fixed 6.8 percent. That's up 1.5 percentage points from the variable rate charged this spring. And parents who borrow from the Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) program will most likely have to pay at least 8 percent, up about 2 percentage points. The combination of bigger debt loads and higher interest rates could easily raise students' repayment costs, which now average about $2,500 a year, by more than $400 annually.

But Nguyen does hold out hope. She and thousands of others have figured out clever ways to reduce or even eliminate their monthly loan payments. And no matter what stage your education is at--even if you graduated years ago--you might still be able to cut your repayment costs if you act soon.

Any student, graduate, or parent who has at least one federally insured education loan can prevent his or her payments from getting any worse by locking in the current low rates before they jump on July 1. Even those with just one loan can "consolidate" the debt, as the refinancing process is known. By consolidating loans, borrowers lock in a fixed rate of the average of whatever they are currently paying. Students who apply before July 1 can lock in rates of no more than 4.75 percent. Those who graduated more than six months ago can cap their rates at 5.375 percent. And parents with at least one unconsolidated loan can set a ceiling of 6.125 percent on their PLUS loans, saving themselves perhaps $1,000 in payments over the life of a $10,000 loan.

Shop around. Those who have borrowed from only one source must consolidate with their current lender. Anyone who has taken a federal educational loan from more than one lender can shop around for the best deal. Many lenders, for example, will knock a quarter point off the interest rate for those who agree to pay by automatic debit. And several offer other incentives. The College Loan Corp., for example, will subtract 2 percent from your balance after nine on-time payments. To seek the best consolidation deal, check with your financial aid office and visit websites like that of the Education Finance Council, a trade group that is posting many lenders' offers.

Students or parents planning to borrow next semester, unfortunately, have little choice but to absorb higher costs. For students, Staffords are still the best loan deal around, even at next school year's fixed 6.8 percent, advisers say.

Parents with good credit or home equity will have to do a little figuring, however. Many banks are offering home equity loans for as little as 7 percent, which could cut about $100 a year in interest off a $10,000 debt, compared with a PLUS loan. In addition, for families earning more than $135,000, the education debt would not be tax deductible, while the higher mortgage payments would probably reduce the family tax bill by several hundred dollars a year.

PLUS loans will be most attractive for parents who don't have sufficient home equity or good enough credit to get the best rates from banks, or those who want to preserve home equity for retirement or an emergency. Stephen Shapiro, a financial adviser with Tuition Solutions Now in Santa Cruz, Calif., also recommends PLUS loans for one other group: parents who are elderly or sick. PLUS loans offer forgiveness of the loan if the parent becomes disabled or if the parent or student dies. "If there's a chance they may not make it" through the repayment period, "they should take a PLUS loan," he says.

Of course, no one should count on a tragedy to save himself from burdensome educational debt. Luckily, a few government agencies and charities have started to respond with happier ways to reduce students' debt burdens. The federal government has launched programs to pay down some education debts of nurses, teachers, child-care workers, and federal employees with skills that are in demand. Many communities and lenders are forgiving the loans of social workers, police officers, soldiers, and other public servants, as well as the neediest students.

A few charities and lenders are also beefing up reduced-rate or even interest-free loans. The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis, for example, will provide about $2.8 million in interest-free education loans to 600 students in parts of Missouri and Illinois next year, up about $200,000 from the current academic year. Nguyen is one of the lucky recipients. But even if you do end up having to pay high interest rates, a college degree is worth the financial pain, she says. "A lot of kids take out money for a car, but cars depreciate. An education has more value because when you get a job, you can move up" and earn more.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after after his death.

"If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it," the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. "In fact, I can't wait to face it," he said.

Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company's debt-collection agency in early April, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill.

Government-linked Telekom Malaysia Bhd. is the country's largest telecommunications company.

A company official, who declined to be identified as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya's case and would address it. She did not provide further details.

"Millions of people are threatened with starvation following the recent severe drought," he said. He estimated that "thousands, perhaps tens of thousands" had died already due to complications from hunger.

"We don't know, because these children dying of diarrhea, these women dying from preventable diseases, these elderly dying too early, die because they have been weakened by malnutrition, they have been weakened by lack of water, lack of sanitation and preventable disease kills them at intolerable levels," Egeland said.

Nomadic communities that depend on livestock for their survival have seen more than 80 percent of their animals die because of lack of water or fodder. Sporadic rains have been reported in the region, but experts said it was unlikely to be enough to reverse the drought and comes too late for most nomadic families.

Egeland said the U.N. appeal was for a comprehensive approach that would not only supply immediate emergency aid, but also take preventative and long-term steps to mitigate future droughts.

"It would be very, very immoral to save people this year and know that they could die again next year, or the year after," he said.

U.N. experts also have reported that the drought cycles have shortened, causing these kinds of problems more frequently, Egeland said. He added that long-term solutions must be found to help the nomads survive under the new climate conditions.

Egeland also emphasized a regional approach for the drought, centered where Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia all meet. Somalia has been an especially difficult area to provide aid since pirates began intercepting ships carrying U.N. food to the country last year and there is still no effective central government in the country.

In Washington, President Bush said Thursday that the United States would send $92 million in aid to prevent widespread famine in the Horn of Africa, in addition to more than $150 million in emergency humanitarian food and other assistance the United States already has provided to the region since October 2005.