US: The US went on high alert yesterday amid new threats of terrorist attacks as Americans prepared to mark the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.
"The threats that we have heard recently remind us of the pattern of threats we heard prior to September 11th," President Bush told reporters. "We have no specific threat to America. But we're taking everything seriously."
Mr Bush spoke after the US government decided for the first time to raise its nationwide threat level to reflect what it believes to be a "high risk of terrorist attacks" because of information from an al-Qaeda source.
"The most recent intelligence that has prompted us to change our status has focused primarily overseas," the US Attorney General, Mr John Ashcroft, said. "New information has fed into an analytic structure which has made us take very seriously both the new information and the analysis which leads us to this conclusion. Information has become available very recently."
He called on Americans to go about their business as normal and said US government workers would report for duty as scheduled today.
Officials said Vice-President Mr Dick Cheney cancelled a speech last night and would spend the night at a secure location.
A US official said the US was increasing its terror alert level from "elevated" to "high" .
"We have evidence of operational activity in the United States and in other places around the world," said the official, who asked not to be named. "The sources of some of this have been identified, some have not."
Mr Bush, meanwhile, pressed on with his struggle for an international consensus to remove Saddam Hussein. He met the Portuguese Prime Minister, Mr Jose Manuel Durao Barosso, in the Oval Office, and during a picture-taking session as they opened their talks, he did not hear the unequivocal statement of support against Iraq that he might have hoped.
Quoting Winston Churchill as saying "the problem with allies is that sometimes they have opinions", the Prime Minister said: "I think that at this very moment, where there are some global threats that have to have a global answer, we should act globally."
In cities across the world events were planned to commemorate September 11th. Giant beams of light are to pierce the skies over Paris and Budapest. A global performance of Mozart's Requiem will start in Auckland, New Zealand, and be played in 125 places. - (AFP, Reuters)