Tokyo ? New Zealand and Australia commemorated the Sept. 11 attacks today and similar ceremonies were planned worldwide, even as terrorism concerns spurred the United States to keep several embassies closed and increase security at others.

As New Zealand became one of the world’s first nations to begin commemorating the attacks, Prime Minister Helen Clark planted trees on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in commemoration.

Nancy Kassebaum Baker, wife of U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker, delivers a speech during a tree-planting ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. Marking the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attack, Kassebaum Baker today planted a Japanese maple tree at the front yard of the embassy. The ambassador is in New York with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

“This date has been forever etched into our memories,” Clark said. “The world will never forget the tragedy which took place. Those attacks were acts of utterly incomprehensible violence which shook us all profoundly.”

In Australia, flags flew at half staff and people began laying wreaths at makeshift memorials early today amid warnings of terrorist threats to Australian targets in East Timor.

Australian officials said the country had closed its embassy in East Timor over what they termed were unconfirmed generic threats to Australian and U.N. interests.

In France, two powerful beams of light were projected into the sky Tuesday night over Paris to honor the memory of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“With this gesture, it will be the whole Parisian community who will pay homage to New Yorkers, and express its solidarity and its attachment to common values,” Paris city hall said in a statement.

Countries on guard

In Washington, Bush administration officials cited the threats against U.S. embassies in southeast Asia in raising the nation’s terror alert to “code orange,” its second-highest level.

German authorities raided a trading company Tuesday that a German official said once employed a suspected al-Qaida recruiter accused of drafting members of the terror cell that dispatched the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers, and Turkey was on alert for the possibility that militants linked to al-Qaida might be planning poison gas attacks.

But the most direct threats were in Southeast Asia, where dozens of Islamic hard-liners allegedly linked to the al-Qaida terror network have been arrested over the last year in Singapore and Malaysia.

In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and home to several hard-line Islamic groups, the U.S. Embassy announced it was closed until further notice because of a “credible and specific” terrorist threat.

“We know that the al-Qaida network is still far from defeated,” Ambassador Ralph Boyce said. He implied the warning was received through intelligence sources, saying it was “more than an anonymous e-mail or a phoned in threat.”

U.S. officials in neighboring Malaysia, a mostly Muslim country of 23 million people, said the embassy there would close until further notice due to a specific threat.

The American diplomatic mission in Cambodia will shut for at least three days as a security precaution, said charge d’affaires Alex Arvizu. He gave no details.

U.S. embassies were also closed in Vietnam, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Malawi.

U.S. embassies in Caribbean countries Haiti, the Domincan Republic and others also heightened security ahead of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In Puerto Rico, U.S. military bases tightened security Tuesday.

Security and sympathy

In Europe, extra security was ordered at airports, government offices and embassies.

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, dedicated most of its Tuesday edition to the anniversary of the terror attacks.

“The duty of memory is accompanied by another imperative that unites all of humanity: the duty to conquer fear,” the newspaper said. “The absurd and heinous logic of terrorism also feeds on the fear that it provokes.”

Italy assigned 4,000 soldiers to protect “sensitive sites,” while Belgium ordered “strict vigilance” for its security authorities. German police said they were stepping up security at Frankfurt airport, continental Europe’s biggest.

“Now, we always have to consider the unthinkable,” Belgian Interior Minister Antoine Duquesne said.

The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide caution this week urging Americans to remain especially vigilant, saying there was a “continuing threat of terrorist actions, which may target civilians and include suicide operations.”

About 10 unarmed London police officers, backed by armed soldiers, were on duty at the U.S. Embassy, where security has been stepped up for the anniversary. U.S. diplomats said security also remained high at the embassy in Berlin, sealed off for a block on all sides by armed police.