A waterfront Palm Beach, Florida, mansion once owned by disgraced financier Bernard Madoff is on the market for US$8.5 million. The Corcoran Group real estate firm announced the price yesterday.

The house on a secluded lot along the Intracoastal Waterway has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms and covers more than 8,700 square feet (808 sq metres). The 71-year-old Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence for masterminding a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that burned thousands of investors.

Windfarm under way in Norway

OSLO (AP):

Norway granted a permit yesterday to build the country's first large-scale offshore wind farm, a 78-turbine complex off the western coast that aims to produce enough electricity to power up to 49,000 homes. Havsul I is being developed by a consortium of regional electricity companies called Vestavind Kraft ASA. Construction is expected to start in 2011 at the earliest, and no completion date has been set.

The windmills in the roughly 4 billion kroner (US$690 million) Havsul I project are designed to have 395-foot (120-metre) rotors.

Obama holds firm re Guantanamo Bay

WASHINGTON (AP):

The US Defence Department's top lawyer says the Obama administration remains committed to closing the Guantanamo Bay prison early next year but is stopping short of assuring it will happen.

Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson yesterday described the administration's struggle to follow legal and moral guidelines when dealing with terror detainees while protecting the United States from al-Qaida.

Uninsured numbers rise

WASHINGTON (AP):

The Census Bureau reports that the number of Americans without health insurance rose to 46.3 million in 2008. That is up from 45.7 million in 2007, due to a continuing erosion of employer-provided insurance. Still, the level remained just below the peak of 47 million who were uninsured in 2006, because of the growth of government insurance programmes such as Medicaid.

The US poverty rate increased to 13.2 per cent, up from the 12.5 per cent in 2007. That meant there were 39.8 million people living in poverty. It was the highest rate since 1997.

Journalists blame authorities

KABUL (AP):

A group of Afghan journalists blamed international forces yesterday for the death of a kidnapped colleague during the British commando rescue of a New York Times reporter, and accused the troops of having a "double standard" for Western and Afghan lives.

The accusation came as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said troops had carried out the raid Wednesday in an attempt to recover both British-Irish reporter Stephen Farrell and Afghan translator and reporter Sultan Munadi, and that the mission was authorised as the "best chance of protecting life".

More than 200 still missing

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP):

More than 200 people, including many schoolchildren returning from holidays, remained missing up to yesterday, a day after a wooden boat capsized in the West African nation and left at least eight dead, police said.

Some 39 passengers have been rescued so far, police official Ibrahim Samura said.

At least 221 people remain missing and some of the passengers also were travelling with young children, Samura said.

"Most of the passengers were school-going children returning from holidays," Samura said.