More than 60,000 of the pension scheme members have already retired, with just 21,400 active members currently making contributions.Rolls-Royce is the latest in a string of companies to take action to cut the mounting costs of final-salary pensions. "This sort of thing does not only affect future workers because part of the lifeblood of any pension scheme is the income stream provided as new members join," he said. The payment would also substantially reduce the £1bn deficit at the Rolls-Royce Pension Fund.Peter Barnes-Wallace, Rolls-Royce's financial communications director, said: "We are anxious to close down the volatility of these pension schemes' deficits. In return, we are prepared to make a lump sum payment of £500m and are also prepared to increase annual contributions."A spokesman for the TGWU, one of two unions representing Rolls-Royce staff, said it was concerned by the announcement. Rolls-Royce announced yesterday the combined deficit of its three pension schemes, which have almost 120,000 members, totals £1.23bn. The largest of the three final-salary plans, the Rolls-Royce Pension Fund, which has 70,000 members, has already shut to new staff, but the company now wants to close two other final-salary plans and introduce a money-purchase scheme - where pensions would not be guaranteed - in their place.Existing workers' membership of the plans would not be affected, though the company is seeking to agree a new investment strategy with the trustees of the schemes. It wants to match the schemes' investments more closely to their liabilities, by switching from equities into fixed-income instruments.If the Rolls-Royce workforce accepts the deal, the company would pay £500m into the three schemes, which would cover the deficits at the two smaller plans.

On a pair of Land Rovers he has parked in his garage, he raised laughter by saying: "They don't work. That's why you buy English cars, there is always something to work on.". Unions at Rolls-Royce have been told they must accept the closure to new staff of the aerospace engine manufacturer's two remaining final-salary pension schemes if they want the company to pay £500m into the plans. He said short sellers would infiltrate analyst meetings to make damaging insinuations - a practice that led him to call one an "asshole" on a telephone conference call.Mr Skilling said he poured his Enron-based wealth into property and cars. Several of his Enron share sales were intended to raise funds for bets against its rival AES, he told the jury in Houston. He estimated he had made $15m from short-selling AES stock over three weeks.Mr Skilling's admission came during a day when he had shown flashes of his famous temper, lashing out against federal prosecutors for "rewriting history" over Enron's collapse.Enron was brought down, he contends, by a loss of confidence among creditors that was triggered by hedge funds betting on a decline in its share price. Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive of the collapsed energy giant Enron, made $15m (£8m) from bets against the share price of a rival energy company, it was revealed at his fraud trial yesterday.

Speaking during his fourth day on the witness stand, Mr Skilling sought to explain why he persistently sold Enron stock in the weeks after he left the company in August 2001. Among the 28 counts of fraud and conspiracy are charges that he engaged in insider trading by selling stock when he knew Enron was a house of cards on the verge of collapse. The risk as always is that a slow disinvestment turns into a stampede out of the dollar. This would force the Fed to push rates up sharply, endangering growth and the precariously poised US housing market.. Others put the anomaly down to massive foreign purchases of longer-term US bonds, in part because of higher US rates, in part to recycle record US current account deficits ($805bn, or £460bn, in 2005).But the anomaly now appears to be unwinding unaided. Meanwhile the foreign buying of US bonds may be easing off, as the Japanese and European economies pick up. Since then, the key fed funds rate has risen in 15 consecutive increments of 0.25 per cent.

But longer-term rates have stubbornly refused to follow suit - and at one point actually fell below short-term ones - resulting in what the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan called the inverted yield curve "conundrum".Pessimists said it was a sign of impending recession, even of a new era of deflation. Meanwhile, oil prices also rose higher yesterday, with the benchmark Brent crude price breaking through the $70 a barrel level for the first time to trade at $70.20 in London.By mid morning, the US 10-year's yield had climbed 5 basis points to 5.03 per cent, up from 4.39 per cent at the start of the year, and the highest since the Federal Reserve began the current tightening cycle in June 2004. A combination of strong GDP figures, a buoyant labour market and rising energy costs has convinced investors that US growth is here to stay, and that the central bank will push rates higher again - from 4.75 per cent to 5 per cent - when it next meets on 10 May. The sell-off in US bonds was mirrored across the world, with yields on German bunds rising to an 18-month high and 10-year gilts in the UK jumping 7 basis points to yield 4.54 per cent. The jump almost certainly heralds higher US interest rates across the board - and, in the eyes of many, a return of normality in financial markets. Finally, it has happened. The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note hit the round number of 5 per cent yesterday for the first time in almost four years. But all that could be a long time coming.For photographs by Juan Medina, visit the Cruel Sea exhibition at the HOST Gallery, 1 Honduras Street from 12 April to 5 May 2006.

For more information, go to www.hostgallery.co.uk. Governments need to make solid their democracies and stamp out corruption. "They need to get to the root of the problem, why people are leaving in the first place," said Father Jerome Otitoyomi Dukiya, a Nigerian priest working with migrants.The UN says the private sector needs to engage more seriously in Africa, and focus on providing jobs for young workers. Madrid has agreed to provide patrol vessels and help train Mauritania's patrol crews.Observers say there are better uses for the €2m (£1.4m) the European Union has promised Mauritania.