The head of the World Health Organisation has said governments should prepare for possible attacks with biological or chemical weapons. Dr Gro Harlem made the comments at a meeting of health ministers in Washington.
In Italy, a special medical task force has been set up to deal with injuries sustained from biological or chemical weapons attack. Fears of attacks using such weapons have increased following the atrocities in the United States.
Earlier today, baton-wielding Iranian police were reported to have broken up a demonstration outside the British embassy in Tehran. The protest was in advance of a tomorrow's visit by the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.
Witnesses said that about 50 people were arrested. Mr Straw will be the first British Foreign Minister to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
He is due to meet President Mohammad Khatami and the Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Some reports, denied by Iran, have suggested Mr Straw may be carrying a message from Washington to try to secure Tehran's help, or agreement, over US strikes in Afghanistan.
Mr Straw is expected to ask Mohammad Khatami for details of the whereabouts of terrorism suspect, Imad Mughniyeh.
Mughniyeh, who was behind the kidnapping of Briton Terry Waite and other westerners in Beirut in the 1980s, is believed to have played a key role in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September, in which more than 6,000 people are believed to have died.
According to the report, Mughniyeh is responsible for founding the Hezbollah suicide squads in Lebanon and it is believed he was involved in at least six other hijackings before the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
He is believed to be in hiding somewhere in the south of Iran.
