2014 Sydney hostage crisis
After the siege began, a staged exclusion zone was established with thousands of people evacuated from nearby buildings, including from the floors above the café. The Sydney Opera House was evacuated after a suspicious package was found; however, reports were unconfirmed by police. The US Consulate General in Sydney, located in Martin Place, was also evacuated. Some Sydney schools were put in "white level lockout" due to the hostage situation, which meant that no school group was permitted to leave the school grounds.
HMAS Sydney (D48)
The main claims made by supporters of an alternative view of the engagement include: that the Germans fired on "Sydney" before raising their battle ensign, or after using a flag of surrender or signals of distress to lure the cruiser in, that a Japanese submarine was partially or completely responsible for sinking "Sydney", that the involvement of the Japanese was covered up to lure the United States into the war, and that Australian survivors were killed in the water to eliminate witnesses. Other claims, less widely heard, include a belief that "Sydney" was not at action stations and thus not prepared for "Kormoran"s attack, distress calls from the cruiser were heard by Australian shore facilities but ignored, and that survivors were captured then executed by the Japanese. These claims have been proven false by historians and researchers; the 1998 inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade concluded that the German accounts were a "feasible" interpretation of the battle, but there was no reliable evidence to support any of the alternative claims, while the 2009 report for the Cole Inquiry (the third volume of which was completely dedicated to the "frauds, conspiracies and speculations" surrounding the battle) found nothing to substantiate any of the theories raised.