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Cape Verde coastguards reported that the Russian owned and crewed merchant vessel, which is thought to have been hijacked, has been seen cruising over 460 miles from archipelago, which lies 280 miles off the coast of Senegal.

“The Arctic Sea is some 400 nautical miles off one of the islands of Cape Verde, therefore outside its territorial waters,” said an official, without specifying the vessel’s precise location.

The Cape Verde authorities have hinted that the sighting may have followed an ongoing surveillance operation of the Maltese-flagged vessel by Nato or other international security agencies.

“The Cape Verde coastguard is in contact with international agencies and organisations that are continually informing it of the movement and progress of the ship,” said the official.

Later, the French defence ministry confirmed the sighting, saying the ship had been “found”, and was last seen about 520 miles off the islands.

Russian diplomatic sources said that at least one frigate was headed to the West African islands on Friday night in pursuit.

The sighting of the ship, the first since Aug 1, comes three weeks after its Russian crew of 15 reported a first boarding of the vessel in Swedish waters by 12 armed, English-speaking, men disguised as police officers.

According to European Union officials a second attack was reported a week later off the Portuguese coast, possibly by intruders who had remained as stowaways after the first attack.

The Russian state news agency Itar-Tass has reported that the original tip-off giving the Arctic Sea’s location came from Russia’s old Cold War rival Nato, with the French armed forces playing a key role.

Cmdr Chris Davies, the spokesman at Nato’s British maritime headquarters, acknowledged that the Western military alliance had been monitoring the situation since the first reports of a possible hijacking.

Five Russian naval vessels, including frigates and nuclear submarines, are in the region after being scrambled on Wednesday in an international maritime hunt for the 4000 ton ship.

The sighting off Cape Verde, a key staging post for cocaine trafficking from Latin America, will renew speculation that the vessel could been have been hijacked by drug or arms smugglers.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, was in Cape Verde on Friday on the final leg of an 11-day tour of Africa.

At a joint press conference with Jose Maria Pereira Neves, Cape Verde’s prime minister, Mrs Clinton praised the former Portuguese colony as representing “a new and emerging Africa”.

The Arctic Sea left the Finnish port of Pietarsaari on July 23 en route to the Algerian port of Bejaia with an official cargo manifest of sawn timber.

The ship has food supplies for a 45-day voyage and enough fuel for 40 days of cruising.

Russia’s navy fleet and two nuclear submarines have been scrambled as efforts intensified to locate the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea and its 15-strong Russian crew.

Experts and marine authorities continued to be baffled today that the 4,000-tonne vessel “disappeared” after its last official recorded positioning off northern France on July 30.

Mikhail Voitenko, editor of Russia’s Sovfracht maritime bulletin, said the ship, carrying sawn timber from Finland to Algeria, might have been targeted because it was also loaded with an unknown cargo.

He told the Russia Today news channel: “The only sensible answer is that the vessel was loaded secretly with something we don’t know anything about.

“We have to remember that before loading in Finland the vessel stayed for two weeks in a shipyard in Kaliningrad.

“I’m sure it cannot be drugs or illegal criminal cargo. I think it is something much more expensive and dangerous.

“It seems some third party didn’t want this transit to be fulfilled so they made this situation highly sophisticated and very complicated.”

The Arctic Sea made routine radio contact with Dover Coastguard as it was about to enter the Strait of Dover from the North Sea at 1.52pm on July 28.

Days later Interpol informed the British Coastguard that the ship had been hijacked days before in the Baltic Sea.

According to reports, it was boarded by up to 10 armed men purporting to be anti-drugs police on July 24.

Some 12 hours later, the intruders apparently left the ship on a high-speed inflatable boat and allowed the vessel to continue on its passage but with its communications equipment damaged.

By the time Interpol alerted Dover Coastguard about the apparent hijacking, the Arctic Sea had already passed through the English Channel, UK Coastguards said.

The ship failed to reach its destination at Bejaia in northern Algeria on August 4, as a supposed crew member on board the vessel told Dover Coastguard when radio contact was made.

It was last recorded on the AISLive ship tracking system off the coast of Brest, northern France, just before 1.30am on July 30, but its whereabouts now remains a mystery.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has ordered all Russian navy ships in the Atlantic to search for the missing vessel, the country’s Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Mark Clark, of the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), said Dover Coastguard was unsuspecting of anything untoward as a supposed crew member radioed before the ship journeyed through the Channel.

He said: “It’s bizarre. There is no coastguard I know who can remember anything like this happening. Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?”

The MCA said it was informed a Portuguese coastal patrol aircraft spotted the vessel later but its current whereabouts remain unknown.

The school on Route 26 at the Paris-Norway town line has been designated by state officials as a distribution site for the H1N1 flu vaccine. The drill is to prepare for a worst-case scenario should the serum have to be transported from Augusta and people rush to get it.

On Thursday morning, four or five National Guard Humvees will travel from Augusta to Paris with vials of fake serum. The National Guardsmen will take on the roles of panicked citizens and military police and practice what they would do, such as using tear gas, in the case of a riot.

“This is just a component of moving the stuff from point A to B,” said Oxford County Emergency Management Agency Director Scott Parker. The plan will be put into place only if needed, he said.

Plans were developed in April to have vials of serum sent from the federal government to Augusta, Parker said. From Augusta, the supplies will be transported to designated distribution centers.

During the April conference, concerns were raised about a possible out-of-control rush on the serum, Parker said. Because of that concern, Gov. John Baldacci and Gen. John Libby, adjutant general of the Maine National Guard, agreed that a plan should be devised to quell such a disturbance.

Local police chiefs have also been involved in the planning, Parker said. In a real event, local police would be in charge of security once the serum arrives in Paris. “We own it. We’re in charge of providing security,” he said.

As of Aug. 5, the Maine Center for Disease Control said there had been 323 confirmed cases of H1N1 in Maine, of which 176 are Maine residents and the rest out-of-staters diagnosed in Maine. A total of 19 people required hospitalization. Sixty percent of the victims were under the age of 25.

On Tuesday, health authorities reported Maine’s first death from the H1N1 virus. Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control, said a York County man in his 50s was hospitalized for three weeks and died last week of underlying conditions complicated by H1N1.

The agency said the screening would all play out behind the scenes, meaning there should be no additional delays for passengers at airport terminals. The change will be phased in starting Saturday. Not all airlines are fully participating yet and might not request the data.

The TSA said it would be up to individual airlines or travel agents to decide how to collect the required information at the time a reservation is made. The program, called Secure Flight, is aimed at meeting congressional mandates, including those passed in 2007 to put into practice recommendations from the commission that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks. The government’s goal is to vet all passengers on domestic commercial flights by early next year.

Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee’s sale. That’s the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

Banks repossessed more than 87,000 homes in July, up from about 79,000 homes a month earlier.

We don’t need to wait to act. In the fight against flu, preparation is more than half the battle — and we need everyone to chip in.

We in the federal government have been aggressively responding to the new H1N1 since April. We’re building on what we learned from the early spring season and from health officials in the southern hemisphere where flu seasons are already underway.

In addition to preparing the seasonal flu vaccine as usual, government scientists and vaccine manufacturers are working around the clock to produce a vaccine to protect people from the new H1N1 flu virus. And we’re making good progress on both fronts — the seasonal flu vaccine is ready for distribution and we’re on track to have an H1N1 vaccine by mid-October.

We’re also working closely with cities, states and across government agencies to make sure we have a rapid, coordinated response this fall. In the last few months, we’ve sent more than $350 million in federal grants to states, tribes, territories and hospitals to help them strengthen their flu response.

In early July, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Education held a flu summit for governors and public health officials. Just this week, we hosted another summit for mayors and county officials and webcast it on flu.gov — which has become the best place to find up-to-date information about flu.

Our agencies are working with the Department of Agriculture to make sure children will have access to healthy meals if their schools close, and with Departments of Commerce and Labor to reach people at work. The Obama Administration has briefed members of Congress at a special bi-cameral, bi-partisan session. And HHS has worked with Members — Republicans and Democrats — on “prevent the flu” public service announcements to air in August when they’re home.

In another emergency measure, regulators directed hospitals and clinics to provide vaccine to all their workers and some volunteers, a move designed to keep the medical workforce robust and prevent doctors and nurses from making their patients sick.

The actions illustrated the intensifying sense of urgency as health authorities, hospital administrators, and clinic executives across the nation confront the prospect of providing hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine against not one but two deadly types of flu in the same season.

“It’s a huge burden of work; there’s no doubt about that,’’ said Dr. Jay Butler, director of the swine flu vaccine task force at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Massachusetts, disease specialists are expecting to provide up to 9 million flu inoculations within the next few months, three times as many as last flu season, because of the need to give two doses of swine flu vaccine.

In Boston, the city health agency plans to offer shots during the day, night, and weekend. There is a chance that retired health workers will be pressed into service to provide vaccinations to adults and children, with many patients needing three visits for all their inoculations.

Knowing they are in a race against viruses that emerge suddenly and spread swiftly, private medical practices are also bracing for an onslaught. At Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, part-time employees will be asked to work longer hours to deliver half-a-million vaccine doses so that doctors can focus on tending to the ill.

“It’s going to require all hands on deck,’’ said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, the top disease tracker at the state Department of Public Health. “We have to get everybody who’s a target for vaccine vaccinated, and we have to get enough people to give the vaccine.’’

The campaigns carry a substantial price tag: The federal government is purchasing the nation’s entire allotment of vaccine against swine flu, known scientifically as H1N1, and has given Massachusetts $10.4 million to defray costs associated with vaccination drives and testing.

Dr. Marylou Buyse, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, said she expects insurers to cover the costs of administering both types of flu vaccine in traditional settings, such as hospitals and physician offices. Her group is reviewing whether those expenses will be covered when plan members get their shots at vaccination drives in schools, government clinics, and elsewhere.

Forty-seven percent of all single-family homeowners with mortgages in Miami-Dade and Broward were in a negative equity position at the end of the second quarter, meaning they owed more on their mortgages than their homes would likely fetch on the market.

That’s up from 44 percent at the end of the first quarter, according to the Web-based real estate services firm. The firm does not do a similar analysis for condo owners.

Negative equity has become one of the chief reasons homeowners enter foreclosure. Discouraged by falling home prices and the prospect of making hefty payments on an impaired asset, many decide to walk away from the debt.

The Russian coast guard ship Ladny is leading the search effort, which also involves navy ships located in the Atlantic, the Defense Ministry said on its Web site today. The missing ship, the Arctic Sea, has a crew of 15 Russian sailors.

The Arctic Sea was attacked in Swedish territorial waters on July 24. The crew was tied up and assaulted while masked pirates searched the cargo vessel. It was boarded between the Swedish islands of Oeland and Gotland in the Baltic Sea by the group who identified themselves as police officers, Swedish police said on July 31.

The freighter, operated by Helsinki-based Oy Solchart Management AB, was scheduled to deliver a cargo of timber to Bejaia, Algeria on Aug. 4, the Sovfracht maritime news service reported last week.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday ordered Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to take “all necessary steps” to find the ship and, if necessary, to free its crew, according to the Kremlin Web site.

The Arctic Sea may have been hijacked by pirates off the Swedish coast, RIA Novosti reported, citing Viktor Matveyev, Solchart’s managing director.

‘Anything’s Possible’

Matveyev said “in this situation anything’s possible,” even a hijacking off Sweden, the state-run Russian news service reported. Matveyev said “it’s still hard to believe that this could happen in Swedish territorial waters,” RIA reported.

Solchart has lost contact with the ship and has no information about its whereabouts, RIA said.

The Malta Maritime Authority’s security committee, which has been meeting on a daily basis since the first report of the Arctic Sea’s disappearance, has “no communication” with the ship.