Israel has given a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon details of where it dropped cluster bombs in its war with Hezbollah in 2006, Lebanon's prime minister has said. The bombs often do not explode on impact, but can do so later at the slightest touch.
At the start of December cluster bombs were banned by close to 100 countries at a convention in Norway. But will this new international pressure to stop their usage convince countries such as the USA and Russia who refused to sign?
A landmark treaty banning the use of cluster bombs has been signed by some 100 countries, although big military powers including the USA, Russia and China were absent from the signing in Oslo, Norway.
111 countries have formally adopted a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs in Dublin, Ireland. The convention outlaws the use, production and stockpiling of cluster munitions. The US, China and Russia were absent from the convention.
A day after 111 countries agreed on a treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs, international observers hailed the deal as a move in the right direction despite the absence of countries such as the USA, Israel, India and China.
In a landmark move, delegates from over 100 countries, though not the US, signed a ban on cluster bombs in Dublin. The signatories agreed to end the production and stockpiling of the weapons. Human rights groups hail a move in the right direction.
France announced on Friday that it would withdraw a type of munition that currently accounts for 90 percent of its cluster bomb stocks, as world representatives met in Dublin to discuss curbing use of such weapons.
An international conference looking to ban the production and use of cluster bombs opens Monday in Dublin, but the world's largest producers and users of the munitions - which kill and maim thousands each year - will be absent.
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