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Australia denies plans

to develop N-arms

SYDNEY: Australian Defence Minister Ian McLachlan ruled out Sunday any possibility of Australia developing nuclear weapons. Former governor-general Bill Hayden had suggested in his recently published autobiography that Australia should consider acquiring nuclear capability, but McLachlan firmly discounted the idea.

"It's just not a possibility," he said in a television interview.

"It was discarded many, many years ago when there may well have been a possibility -- I mean, 30 years ago -- and it's not a possibility for the future."

McLachlan said in the current atmosphere of nuclear disarmament around the world, Australia had no intention of starting to develop nuclear arms.-APP