Karzai Agrees to Cluster Bomb Treaty

Karzai Agrees to Cluster Bomb Treaty
"In a surprising last-minute change of policy, the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan agreed on Wednesday to join about 100 nations in signing a treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, a senior Afghan official said.
.....Representatives of about 100 nations began signing the ambitious treaty formally renouncing the use of the bombs, typically anti-personnel weapons that eject dozens of explosive bomblets when detonated. But some of the world’s biggest military powers, including the United States, China and Russia, reject the pact and many of the signatories expressed concern that the treaty they were signing fails to bind the countries most prone to military conflict. ...
Disarmament activists are already looking beyond the Bush administration and are calling on President-elect Barack Obama to sign the cluster munitions treaty and send it for ratification soon after he takes office. For good measure, they want Mr. Obama to sign a 1997 treaty banning the use and sale of anti-personnel landmines.