澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2010-09-06

（单词翻译）

Residents in northeast and western Victoria are bracing¹ for the worst today as floodwaters continue to rise. Sixty residents in the town of Wangaratta in the state’s northeast have been told to evacuate². In Victoria’s west, residents at Skipton near Ballarat have also been asked to leave their homes. More than 250 houses have already been flooded.

Work resumed this morning to clear fallen trees and damaged roofs in parts of New South Wales that were hit by a severe storm. One hundred thousand houses in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions lost power at the peak of the storm as winds of 100km/h brought down power lines.

The three federal independent MPs hope to decide either today or tomorrow just which party they’ll support to form government. Labor’s agreed to the set of parliamentary reform proposals put forward by Rob Oakeshott. But the Coalition³ says it’s important that any changes do not disadvantage the Opposition⁴.

First it was the quake; now strong winds are threatening to do more damage to the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Strong aftershocks have continued to shake the shattered city after Saturday’s 7.1-magnitude quake. Police said the 130 km/h winds could bring down unstable⁵ bricks and masonry⁶.

And American soldiers have been called in to help Iraqi forces battle insurgents⁷ just days after the US formally ended combat operations in the country. The insurgents attacked an army base in Baghdad, killing⁸ at least 12 people. An Iraqi officer says US forces exchanged gunfire with the attackers before Iraqi security forces stormed the building.