At least 13 hostages in a chocolate bar in Sydney. Islamic flag blocking window. All air traffic over Sydney shut down.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/17174725/yahoo-7-live-sydney/
I’m listening to updates on the radio
Sending good thoughts…
Channel Seven blurs the faces of the hostages and only offers taped delay, while their commentary is live. The government channel (ABC) is using the live Channel Seven feed, but not blurring hostage faces nor running a taped delay.
I’m working but have the telly on mute with banner updates. What a fucking horrible thing to do. Whoever you are, whatever your politics and/or religion, whatever your mental health status, I hope you rot in hell.
ABC news has dropped their lock to other countries, live YouTube feed here:
ABC News (USA) reporting an incident at the Opera House. Sounds more of a precautionary evacuation according to Oz news, but the US media has its own hype with third-hand information.
Hey there!
I work on Elizabeth Street, but I was already working from home today. The rest of my office got sent home, not because of fears of terrorist action, but because they want to get traffic out of the CBD and they are thinking public transport will get snarled later. Given that public transport snarls if it rains two drops, I think that is a spot on assessment.
Here’s the updating feed from the Sydney Morning Herald - they aren’t confirming the Opera House story.
I have coffee at the Lindt cafe - did Saturday in fact - pretty often as it’s on the way between two office buildings I frequent. Scary stuff.
News.com.au is the local Murdoch rag’s URL (the Telegraph), so I trust very little of their reporting.
Conflicting work reports now (I work for a large business with multiple CBD sites). First they told us to go home and work - and hope you did because now they are saying the city is in shutdown and we should stay in the building.
I was already working from home, so that’s at least a plus.
Our retail stores have closed though.
A detail that is mentioned in the OP and that I have seen mentioned in news coverage has been clarified:
:mad:
I heard a report that threats were made to other areas in the city. Is this true?
Either way, I have to give props to Sydney officials for not overreacting by shutting down the entire city. They seem to be handling everything very well.
Of course, this is horrible. Hearts in throats, thoughts with you…
My thoughts are with the poor bastards still trapped inside How terrified they must be! It’s been going on for a long time.
I just hope they all get home safely tonight, as well as all the law enforcement officers who are there trying to assist.
I’ve been pretty impressed with the way this has been handled by the professionals. The media are the media and to be honest my expectations of them are not high, but there’s been lots of info about trains and buses to get out of the city. And they are very obviously taking the approach that this is an armed hostage situation that they are trying to resolve, and avoiding beating up the political / terrorist angle, which can only help while it’s unfolding. All that can be discussed in the aftermath. I’ve been a little disgusted with some of the social media commentary I’ve been seeing - people letting their racism / idiocy / political leanings be the talking point, while the hostages are still being held at gun point FFS! Fortunately not even a whisper of that from official sources.
No (ish).
There’s a shock jock (Ray Hadley) who claims this but he’s a loon. Police have checked out reports of devices around the city but nothing else has happened.
In the broader sense it’s true in that there have been threats to Australia from terrorists recently.
I’m a block away. We’re still operating as normal.
I just went to the GPO and found it had closed, as have most of the other shops around the site. Buses and trains are still running, though not stopping at Martin Place.
You can still walk up Martin Place.
What’s the drum on Ray Hadley actually speaking with the gunman off-air?? Have seen this floating around a few news-sites, but haven’t seen official verification.
??
My understanding is they are discouraging that but it’s only really closed between Elizabeth and Macquarie.
Trains were stopped for a while but still running. I’m following it via my internal work communications from the bottom of Martin Place(ish) at George St., although my office is on Elizabeth.
The reason people were asked to go home initially was fear of public transport snafu more than anything, although our risk officer says now police have asked us all to stay put.
Sydneysiders will recognise where I work, probably. 
Cest la vie.
I don’t know. At a wild assed guess it’s Hadley big-noting himself, because he is a gold-plated fuckwit.
Cuncator, I’m not surprised, as a lot of businesses are sending home their staff early (since not a lot of work is getting done anyway in a lot of places), plus it spreads out the evening commute traffic. If half the Sydney office workers have left the CBD prior to the usual rush, it will make transport much easier and more efficient, especially for bus traffic which is disrupted the most by this incident
We’ve been told we can go home now if we think it will make the journey easier.