澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2010-04-29（在线收听）

Australia is poised to become the first country to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes. From 2012, the Federal Government will ban all brand names on cigarette packets. But it will still be compulsory to carry graphic warnings. The Australian arm of British American Tobacco says the move could bolster the black market, because packets will be easier to counterfeit.

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized for an embarrassing election campaign gaffe. Mr. Brown was caught on microphone, describing a voter he’d just met as a "bigot". Britons head to the polls for the general election next week.

The scandal surrounding former West Australian Treasurer Troy Buswell has taken a new twist. Mr. Buswell now says he sought legal advice which shows he did not misuse his parliamentary entitlements during his affair with Greens MP Adele Carles. Mr. Buswell tendered his resignation as treasurer on Tuesday.

The International Monetary Fund has warned the Greece's debt crisis could spread across Europe. IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been in Germany, trying to convince the country's finance minister to support a rescue plan. The Standard & Poor's ratings agency has downgraded Spain's debt too, a day after Greece's debt was listed as junk.