Australia Prime Minister Raises Terror Threat Level to High

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott raised the country’s terror threat level to ‘high’ from ‘medium,’ a level which indicates that the government believes a militant attack on home soil is likely, but stressed that there is no knowledge of specific attack plans.

“Last night the director general of security raised the terror threat to high, consequently today the government is raising the public awareness level to high,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a news conference in Melbourne.

“I want to stress that this does not mean that a terror attack is imminent. We have no specific intelligence of particular plots. What we do have is intelligence that there are people with the intent and capability to mount attacks here in Australia,” he added.

The warning comes a day after U.S. President Barack Obama detailed plans to conduct a campaign against the Islamic State that includes targets in Syria and as America marks the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001.
According to David Irvine, head of Australia’s Security & Intelligence Organization, “rhetoric from the Middle East is encouraging more Australians to take violent action.”

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza