Economy
NATION: The Lindt Chocolat Cafe siege. MYEFO
Sydney’s CBD is in lockdown as police negotiate with a gunman who stormed into the busy Lindt Chocolat Cafe in Martin Place on Monday morning and took customers and staff hostage.
In extraordinary and terrifying scenes, hostages could be seen through the cafe’s windows with their hands held in the air, while heavily armed police surrounded the building.
A number of hostages were being forced to hold an Islamic flag against the window shortly after the siege began at 9.45am.
Thousands of workers across the city have been sent home early and some of the city’s major buildings evacuated.
They include the Opera House, the State Library, Channel Seven, the NSW parliamentary executive offices, the NSW Supreme Court’s criminal courts, the Downing Centre, and several city legal chambers.
• Use the TT NEWS Dropdown (top nav bar) for different interpretations of the Breaking News …
AFR: Foreign aid cut as Budget deficit blows out to $40.4b The federal government has announced a $40.4 billion deficit for 2014-15 after plunging commodity prices and slower wages growth led revenues to fall by $7 billion this year alone. The deficit, outlined in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, is $10 billion worse than the $30 billion forecast in the May budget. Deficits for this and the next three years have all blown out, pushing out until at least the end of the decade any return to surplus. The forecast of a balanced budget by 2017-18 in May has blown into a deficit of $11.5 billion. The government has allowed the deficits to blow out rather than chase the falling revenue with cuts but it has taken the axe to foreign aid to cover some of the new spending since the budget, namely war and national security. On top of the $7.6 billion cut from foreign aid in May, another $3.7 billion has been axed over four years to pay for the military deployment in Iraq, the $630 million boost to the domestic security agencies to fight terrorism and the recent $200 million contribution the Green Climate Fund. The foreign aid cuts do not need legislation nor will they harm the domestic economy. They represent a significant defeat for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who was assured by colleagues after the May budget there would be no more aid cuts and she fought these vigorously.