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Cluster bombs
More than 90 nations signed a treaty to ban cluster bombs that have killed and maimed thousands of people, though powerful arms producers including the United States, Russia and China, remain outside the pact.
Despite those and other military powers not signing, 18 of 26 NATO members, including Britain, France, Germany, signed the convention which many hailed as a humanitarian achievement.
Estimates of those killed and injured by cluster bombs over the decades range from tens of thousands to 100,000 and more, though campaigners say the real numbers will never be known.
Cluster bombs contain scores or even hundreds of submunitions - or "bomblets" - that blanket wide areas. Since not all of them explode on impact, they pose lethal danger to civilians, particularly children, killing and maiming decades after being used in combat.
"Today we confirm that cluster munitions are banned forever," said Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the first to sign in a process that will extend over two days.
By the end of the session, 92 states out of 125 at the conference had signed the treaty at Oslo's ornate City Hall, site of the annual Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony.
Though not all will sign, officials said they hoped to have 100 or more signatures by the end of the signing session.
The US State Department repeated Washington's position this week, saying that while it has similar humanitarian concerns it will not sign because a general ban "will put the lives of our military men and women, and those of our coalition partners, at risk."
Some of Washington's closest allies heaped pressure on it and others outside the convention to join it.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "I call on those states that have not yet signed to follow our example and renounce cluster munitions in the future."
His British counterpart David Miliband said: "The only real deal is a global deal."
Campaigners said they expect the treaty to so thoroughly stigmatise cluster bombs that, like the 1997 landmine ban, it will be obeyed even by those who do not sign it.
Afghanistan, which campaigners for the ban said had been under pressure by Washington not to sign, reversed its position and announced to the conference that President Hamid Karzai had given a green light to join just a few hours earlier.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions now signed in Oslo was adopted by 107 states in Dublin in May. It bans the use, production, stockpiling and trade of such weapons.
It requires states to destroy stockpiles within eight years and to clear contaminated areas within 10 years of it going into force, which will be six months after 30 states ratify the pact.
Signing states must also provide assistance to cluster bomb victims, their families and affected communities.
Following the Oslo ceremony, the treaty will go to the United Nations in New York where more states may sign.
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