Gold futures rose to a record $1,272.40 an ounce on demand for a haven against turmoil in the global economy and financial markets.

Gold futures for December delivery rose $22.40, or 1.8 percent, to $1,269.50 at 10:16 a.m. on the Comex in New York. The previous all-time high was $1,266.50 on June 21.

The metal, heading for the 10th straight annual gain, has offered insurance against fluctuations in the dollar and the euro, and gold has outperformed most stocks and bonds this year. The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have kept benchmark lending rates at the lowest level ever to revive the economy.

?Its hard for people to rally behind stocks, said Leonard Kaplan, the president of Prospector Asset Management in Evanston, Illinois. ?People cant buy anything that yields, so theyre buying bull markets. Gold is in a bull market. Gold will continue to go higher until interest rates start rising.

Gold will average $1,400 in the fourth quarter as ?risk aversion and fear take precedence over greed as the outlook for Western economies remains obscured by a myriad of unknowns, Deutsche Bank AG said in a report on Sept. 10.

The metal has rallied as central banks and governments maintained low borrowing costs and spent trillions of dollars to stimulate economies. President Barack Obama said last week that the U.S. economic recovery has been ?painfully slow. The administration forecasts this years deficit will hit a record $1.47 trillion and $1.41 trillion next year.

Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job-seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay ? or none at all.

Job creation will likely remain weak for months or even years. But once employers do step up hiring, some economists expect job openings to fall mainly into two categories of roughly equal numbers:

_ Professional fields with higher pay. Think lawyers, research scientists and software engineers.

_ Lower-skill and lower-paying jobs, like home health care aides and store clerks.

And those in between? Their outlook is bleaker. Economists foresee fewer moderately paid factory supervisors, postal workers and office administrators.

That’s the sobering message American workers face as they celebrate Labor Day at a time of high unemployment, scant hiring and a widespread loss of job security. Not until 2014 or later is the nation expected to have regained all, or nearly all, the 8.4 million jobs lost to the recession. Millions of lost jobs in real estate, for example, aren’t likely to be restored this decade, if ever.

On Friday, the government said the August unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6 percent. Not enough jobs were created to absorb the growing number of people seeking work. The unemployment rate has exceeded 9 percent for 16 months, the longest such stretch in nearly 30 years.

The crisis poses a threat to President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, whose hold on the House and Senate appears to be at increasing risk because of voter discontent.

Even when the job market picks up, many people will be left behind. The threat stems, in part, from the economy’s continuing shift from one driven by manufacturing to one fueled by service industries.

Pay for future service-sector jobs will tend to vary from very high to very low. At the same time, the number of middle-income service-sector jobs will shrink, according to government projections. Any job that can be automated or outsourced overseas is likely to continue to decline.

The service sector’s growth could also magnify the nation’s income inequality, with more people either affluent or financially squeezed. The nation isn’t educating enough people for the higher-skilled service-sector jobs of the future, economists warn.

“There will be jobs,” says Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist. “The big question is what they are going to pay, and what kind of lives they will allow people to lead? This will be a big issue for how broad a middle class we are going to have.”

On one point there’s broad agreement: Of 8 million-plus jobs lost to the recession ? in fields like manufacturing, real estate and financial services ? many, perhaps most, aren’t coming back.

In their place will be jobs in health care, information technology and statistical analysis. Some of the new positions will require complex skills or higher education. Others won’t ? but they won’t pay very much, either

“Our occupational structure is really becoming bifurcated,” says Richard Florida, a professor at University of Toronto. “We’re becoming more of a divided nation by the work we do.”

By 2018, the government forecasts a net total of 15.3 million new jobs. If that proves true, unemployment would drop far closer to a historical norm of 5 percent.

Nearly all the new jobs will be in the service sector, the Labor Department says. The nation’s 78 million baby boomers will need more health care services as they age, for example. Demand for medical jobs will rise. And innovations in high technology and alternative energy are likely to spur growth in occupations that don’t yet exist.

Hiring can’t come fast enough for the 14.9 million unemployed Americans. Counting part-time employees who would prefer full-time jobs, plus out-of-work people who have stopped looking for jobs, the number of “underemployed” is 26.2 million.

Manufacturing has shed 2 million jobs since the recession began. Construction has lost 1.9 million, financial services 651,000.

But the biggest factor has been the bust in real estate. The vanished jobs range from construction workers and furniture makers to loan officers, appraisers and material suppliers. Moody’s Analytics estimates the total number of housing-related jobs lost at 2.4 million. When you include commercial real estate, the number is far higher.

One of them is Martha Escobar, who last month lost her $13.50-an-hour job cleaning an office tower owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Century City, Calif. She was one of 16 janitors, mostly single mothers, who lost jobs as part of the real estate crunch that’s squeezed landlords.

Some of them traveled to New York on Thursday to try to pressure JPMorgan to get its cleaning contractor to take them back, given that the bank earned $8.1 billion during the first half of this year.

“I don’t know what I am going to do if I can’t get my job back,” Escobar, 41, said.

JPMorgan Chase spokesman Gary Kishner said the bank has no say over the layoffs, which he said are handled by the building’s cleaning contractor.

On top of real estate-related job losses, manufacturing is likely to keep shedding jobs, sending lower-skilled work overseas. Millions who worked in those fields will need to find jobs in higher-skilled or lower-paying occupations.

“The big fear is the country is simply not preparing workers for the kind of skills that the country is going to need,” says Gautam Godhwani, CEO of SimplyHired.com, which tracks job listings.

Sectors likely to grow fastest, according to economists and government projections, are:

_ HEALTH CARE

The sector is expected to be the leading job generator, adding 4 million by 2018, according to Labor Department data. An aging population requires more doctors and nurses, physical therapists, home health aides and pharmacists.

Many of these jobs will pay well. Physical therapists averaged about $76,000 last year, according to the department’s data. Others pay far less. Home health care aides earned an average of just $21,600.

Home health care and personal care aides are expected to add about 900,000 jobs by 2018 ? 50 percent more than in 2008.

Jennifer Gamboa of Body Dynamics Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based physical therapy firm, says the drive to reduce health care costs should benefit her profession, which can treat pain less expensively than surgery. Gamboa plans to add two employees in the next year.

_ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Technology could be an economic elixir as computers and online networks expand ways to automate services, distribute media and communicate.

Companies will need people to build and secure those networks. That should boost the number of programmers, network administrators and security specialists by 45 percent to 2.1 million by 2018, the government forecasts. Most of these jobs will provide above-average pay.

Technology pay averaged $84,400 in 2008 ? nearly double the average private-sector pay of $45,400, according to an analysis of the most recent full-year data by the TechAmerica Foundation, a research group.

_ NEW INDUSTRIES: Deepak Advani, an IBM executive, has a title he says didn’t exist five years ago: “Vice president of predictive analytics.”

Companies and government agencies have amassed data on behavior ranging from shopping habits to criminal activity. Predictive analytics is the art of determining what to do with that data. How should workers’ time be deployed? How best to target customers? Such jobs could grow 20 percent by 2018, the government predicts.

Still, economists say more will be needed to boost job growth. The answer may be some technological breakthrough akin to the personal computer or the Internet.

“Most big booms come from a particular sector that moves the rest of the economy,” said Richard Freeman, a Harvard labor economist.

Technology spurred job growth after the 1982 and 1991 recessions. The PC became revolutionary in the early 1980s. Internet use exploded after the Mosaic Web browser was introduced in 1994. Housing eventually lifted employment after the 2001 dot-com bust.

“There’s a lack of clarity on what the next big thing is going to be this time,” said David Card, an economics professor at the University of California.

Until there is, many people will have to lower expectations and living standards as they enter fields with less pay and less job stability, said Dan Finnigan, CEO of online employment service Jobvite.

“People who are unemployed have to embrace this future that they are going to have many jobs,” he said. “We will always be working on the next gig.”

?This moment of opportunity may not soon come again, said Mr Obama, who was
joined by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State and George Mitchell,
the Middle East envoy.

“Now is the time for leaders of courage and vision to deliver the peace
that their people deserve.

Mr Obama, who earlier condemned
the “senseless slaughter” of four Israeli settlers,
promised to put the “full weight” of the US behind the peace
effort.

“If both sides do not commit to these talks in earnest, then the
long-standing conflict will only continue to fester and consume another
generation. This we simply cannot allow,” he said.

“We know there will be moments that test our resolve. We know that
extremists and enemies of peace will do everything in their power to destroy
this effort”.

As the Mr Obama held individual meetings with leaders from the region, it
became clear that in the aftermath of the killing of four Israeli settlers
on Tuesday by Hamas neither side was able to soften their position.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said
there was no change to the cabinet decision to end the partial construction
freeze on new settlements in the West Bank on Sep 26.

The freeze had been crucial in bringing the Palestinians to the table after
they left talks in December 2008 when Israel launched a devastating attack
on Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas militants.

“It is impossible to take the issue of settlements in the West Bank,
which is an issue for the permanent agreement, and deal with it separately
at the beginning of the direct talks,” Mr Netanyahu said in a
statement.

The Palestinians hit back that any resumption of Israeli settlement
construction would spell the end of the talks.

“The settlements must be halted and continuing them will signal the end
of the peace process,” said Nabil Abu Rudeina, the Palestinian
spokesman.

The Palestinians insist that the ever-growing settler population is eroding
their chances of securing a viable future state. There are estimated to be
500,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which have been
occupied by Israel since their capture in 1967.

Though there is scope for compromise, such as a ban on construction in certain
areas and settlements, Mr Netanyahu heads a Right-wing coalition with a
number of strongly pro-settler parties who may be reluctant to accept
anything seen as a compromise.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, faces domestic pressures of his own
not to back down on the issue.

Sentiments are now running higher in Israel after the murders of the four
settlers. Two men and two women, one of them pregnant, were ambushed in
their car which was riddled with bullets.

Thousands attended an emotional funeral for the victims yesterday, while
settler leaders declared they would unilaterally end the building
moratorium. There were further reports on Wednesday night of Palestinian
gunmen wounding two Israelis in another car attack in the West Bank.

Mr Netanyahu called for calm. “At a time like this when all of Israel is
united in deep mourning over the murder of four innocent civilians, I call
on all parties to act with restraint, responsibility and respect the rule of
law,” he said.

US officials hope that they can get both side through to a second round of
talks, expected to be held in Egypt in the second week of September.

VIENNA
? Ignoring a U.S. warning, Arab nations are urging Washington and other powers to end support of Israel’s nuclear secrecy and to push the Jewish state to allow international inspections of its program, diplomats told The Associated Press Sunday.

Islamic nations have long called for Israel ? which is widely believed to have nuclear arms ? to open its program. But the fact that the Arab League has directly approached Washington and other Israeli allies for support at the September meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency is significant, considering that President Barack Obama last month warned against using that forum to single out Israel.

Obama then suggested that such a move would likely kill hopes of breakthrough talks on a Mideast nuclear-free zone, as proposed by the U.N.’s 189-nation Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference three months ago.

Over Israeli objections, the planned 2012 talks were backed by the U.S. and other nuclear powers for the first time since Arab nations pushed for such a gathering 15 years ago.

The Arab appeal to pressure Israel to open its nuclear program to inspectors also threatens to deflect attention from Iran, which Washington and its allies now consider a grave nuclear proliferation threat, even though Tehran insists it is not developing nuclear weapons.

The Arab appeal is contained in an Aug. 8 letter signed by Arab League chief Amr Moussa that was shared with The Associated Press. It asks for backing of a resolution that Arab nations will submit to the September assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

An attached draft of the resolution expresses “concern” about Israel’s nuclear program and urges it to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to open its atomic activities to outside inspection.

A cover note also seen by the AP asks the Belgian Embassy in Cairo to transmit the letter and the draft to Belgian Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere, who now holds the rotating European Union presidency.

Diplomats accredited to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and familiar with the issue told the AP that the letter also was sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Britain and France ? the four other permanent U.N. Security Council members.

All the diplomats who agreed to discuss the issue with the AP asked for anonymity because of the confidentiality of their information.

Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed in a statement last month to “work together to oppose efforts to single out Israel” at the 150-nation International Atomic Energy Agency conference.

On the proposed Mideast nuclear-free zone talks, their statement warned that “any efforts to single out Israel will make the prospects of convening such a conference unlikely.”

But the Arab letter says the notion of singling out Israel “is not the case.”

“Singling out a state assumes that there are a number of states in the same position and only one state was singled out,” the letter says. Referring to the Nonproliferation Treaty, it says: “The fact is that all the states in the region have acceded to the NPT except Israel.”

Israel is commonly assumed to have nuclear weapons but refuses to discuss the issue.

The latest pressure puts the Jewish state in an uncomfortable position. It wants the international community to take stern action to prevent Iran from obtaining atomic weapons but at the same time brushes off calls to come clean about its own nuclear capabilities.

Passions have grown since September when the International Atomic Energy Agency assembly overrode Western objections to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program for the first time in 18 years.

The result was a setback not only for Israel but also for the United States and other supporters of the Jewish state.

Because the resolution passed by only a four-vote margin, lobbying by both sides has intensified ahead of next month’s meeting.

Three diplomats from International Atomic Energy Agency member nations said the EU and the U.S. were meeting or planning to meet with possible undecided nations to seek their support of Israel, even as the Arab bloc continues pushing for support for its resolution, entitled “Israeli nuclear capabilities.”

The U.S. and its allies consider Iran the region’s greatest proliferation threat, fearing that Tehran is trying to achieve the capacity to make nuclear weapons despite its assertion that it is only building a civilian program to generate power.

They also say Syria ? which, like Iran is under International Atomic Energy Agency investigation ? ran a clandestine nuclear program, at least until Israeli warplanes destroyed what they describe as a nearly finished plutonium-producing reactor two years ago. Syria denies that.

But Islamic nations insist that Israel is the true danger in the Middle East, saying they fear its nuclear weapons capacity. Israel has never said it has such arms, but is widely believed to possess them.

Even ahead of the General Conference, key International Atomic Energy Agency nations are expected to disagree about Israel’s nuclear activities. The item is to be discussed at the agency’s decision-making board of 35 nations, according to a copy of the restricted provisional agenda of that gathering shared with The AP.

(This version CORRECTS Adds date of the Arab letter, background about Israel, Iran and Syria, corrects Moussa’s first name to Amr, not Amre, and links the AP photo.)

WASHINGTON  ? An administration task force is proposing several options aimed at overcoming liability obstacles that could hinder the development of “clean coal” technology. The experimental technique involves storing carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other sources underground, in an attempt to reduce pollution blamed for contributing to global warming.

A big issue hanging over the developing technology is liability costs if something goes wrong. A sudden release of large amounts of carbon dioxide can kill by asphyxiation. In 1986, 1,700 people died when a cloud of carbon dioxide escaped from a volcanic lake in Cameroon.

In its report Thursday, the task force said the following liability options should be considered: maintaining the current legal framework; limits on claims; an industry-financed trust fund to pay damages after a site is closed; or transfer of liability to the federal government following a site closure, with certain contingencies.

While advising against the government taking on unlimited liability for underground storage of carbon dioxide, the task force says that the government could take it on at closed sites if federal regulators certify that the carbon dioxide is safely sequestered and will remain that way.

The Energy Department has estimated that there are hundreds to thousands of years of potential storage potential in geologic formations in North America.

President Barack Obama created the task force in February. He charged it with coming up with a plan to overcome barriers to widespread, cost-effective deployment of carbon storage technology within 10 years — with a goal of bringing five to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016.

The report also says that the key to developing the technology is charging a fee on carbon dioxide emissions. It says that without such a fee, there is no framework for investing in carbon capture and storage.

According to the report, coal-fired power plants are the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, which is why the Obama administration is making a big push for “clean coal.” The Energy Department is funding demonstration projects with $4 billion in federal funds, matched by more than $7 billion in private investments.

Senate Democrats were forced last month to shelve plans for climate legislation, which included a fee on carbon emissions, because they couldn’t get enough Republicans to support it. The GOP assailed the bill as a “national energy tax” and jobs killer, arguing that the costs would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher electricity bills and fuel costs.

Despite questions about the technology and skepticism about its feasibility, the report says there are no insurmountable barriers to carbon capture and storage. But early projects do face “first-of-a-kind technology risks” and high costs, the report says.

The task force, led by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, included input from 14 federal agencies, carbon capture experts and others. The report calls on federal agencies to help along the technology by coming up with rules governing coal storage projects.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which represents industries involved in producing electricity from coal, urged the government to continue to press forward on the issue.

Carbon capture and storage “represents the next wave of clean coal technology, allowing us to safely capture and store carbon dioxide,” said Steve Miller, the group’s president and CEO. “Investments in this technology are critical, and we look forward to a continued partnership between the private sector and the federal government to ensure its development.”

Miller’s statement did not address the call for a fee on carbon emissions, and the group did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that part of the report.

Frank O’Donnell, president of the environmental group Clean Air Watch, said he agreed with the basic premise that the government needs to limit carbon emissions for the technology to become widespread.

“And, even then, who knows for sure?” he said.

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 12:14 p.m.

WASHINGTON ?
Determined to show a commitment to stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, the Senate convened a special session Thursday and passed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border.

The voice vote in the nearly empty Senate chamber sends the legislation to President Barack Obama, who planned to sign it into law on Friday. Obama had urged Congress to channel more money toward border security amid complaints from states besieged by undocumented immigrants and illegal drug trafficking.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the chief sponsor, said the measure would provide Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “with the boots on the ground and the resources necessary to combat the crime and violence.”

Obama said the bill would help protect communities along the Southwest border and across the country.

“And this new law will also strengthen our partnership with Mexico in targeting the gangs and criminal organizations that operate on both sides of our shared border,” he said in a statement.

House Democrats had also called a special session, summoning lawmakers back from their summer break Tuesday to pass the border security bill and a $26 billion aid bill to keep teachers and other public workers from being laid off. Both issues — jobs and border security — are among those expected to be on voters’ minds when they go to the polls in November.

Senate historian Donald Ritchie said it was only the second time since the August break became official policy in 1970 that the Senate had reconvened. The first time was after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The border security measure would fund the hiring of 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas along the border, 250 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and 250 more Customs and Border Protection officers.

It provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned surveillance drones. There are currently seven such drones along the border. Almost one-third of the money goes to the Justice Department to help agencies such as the FBI, the DEA and the ATF deal with drug dealers and human traffickers.

The bill is paid for by raising fees on foreign-based personnel companies that use U.S. visa programs, including the popular H-1B program, to bring skilled workers to the United States. India says higher fees would discriminate against its companies and workers.

Arizona Republican Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl called the legislation a start. But, in a statement, they said the bill fell short by not dramatically increasing the number of customs inspectors along the Arizona border and not funding a program that charges illegal immigrants with low-level crimes and requires them to spend time in jail.

It’s taken the House and Senate several tries over the past months to agree on the contents of the bill and how it should be paid for. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., said that throughout this legislative back-and-forth she had worked “to make sure that Congress knows that we are fed up with the federal government’s failure along the border.” She said that with Senate action, “at least this time, they are listening to us.”

Arizona has been at the epicenter of the border security debate since it passed a law directing law enforcement officers to be more aggressive in seeking out illegal immigrants. Although a federal judge has since struck down some of the law’s major provisions, it remains a rallying cry for those who say Washington has lost control of the border.

Both the Obama administration and congressional Democrats say they are committed to more comprehensive immigration legislation, including steps to create a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country. But the issue has made little headway, pushed aside by other priorities such as health care and failing to gain bipartisan support in the Senate.

“Both moderate Democrats and Republicans said they wouldn’t even consider comprehensive reform until we did something about the border,” Schumer said. He said the bill “will clear the path for restarting the bipartisan discussions we absolutely need to have for restoring the rule of law to our entire immigration system.”

—

The bill is H.R. 6080.

Online:

Congress:

http://thomas.loc.gov