The UK acts to ban cluster bombs.

^{On 28th May after 10 days of intense talks in Dublin, an agreement was reached on a new international Convention prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs.}

^{A cluster bomb is a single bomb which breaks up to scatter scores of small bombs across a wide area. Although highly effective, many of these bomblets can fail to explode on impact as they should. They can remain in the ground for months and years waiting to be disturbed or discovered. This means that many years after the original conflict these bombs continue to injure and maim civilians.}

^{Thirty years after the Vietnam War, cluster bombs dropped during the conflict are still killing people in south-east Asia. As many as 60% of the victims of cluster bombs in this region are children. It is for this reason there has been an international campaign to halt their use.}

^{These efforts finally paid dividends last week when over 100 countries agreed to ban cluster munitions. The UK has already withdrawn and promised to destroy all cluster munitions without a self destruction mechanism – the first country to do so.}

^{I know campaigners are concerned that some major countries including the US, Russia, China, and Israel have not yet agreed to sign the convention but we hope that in time they will. We also hope, as has happened with the landmine ban agreed in 1997, that the convention will encourage even those countries that did not sign to stop using such weapons.}