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31 May 08
Dripa BCluster bombs should be outlawed in most of the world thanks to an agreement formally endorsed by over 100 governments in Dublin
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The key sticking point in the negotiations related to whether signatories to the accord could participate in joint military operations with countries that continue to use cluster bombs.
Britain successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a clause that would allow it to fight alongside the U.S. in wars. A British diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that it sought this provision in order to "legally protect our servicemen; that was our chief concern." -
After men, who often happen across unexploded devices while undertaking farm-work, children are the population group most likely to be hurt or killed by cluster bombs.
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The most recent large-scale usage of cluster bombs occurred during Israel's attacks on Lebanon in 2006.
During the last 72 hours of the conflict that raged in July and August of that year, Israel fired over 1,800 cluster rockets containing 1.2 million submunitions. For the two months after the official cessation of hostilities, casualties were still being recorded at the rate of three or four people killed or maimed per day.
Israel, both a manufacturer and user of cluster bombs, is among the states opposed to an international ban. Other key military powers with a similar position include Russia, China, India and Pakistan.
The Lebanon example illustrated how cluster bombs can have adverse consequences for both lives and livelihoods. Some 70 percent of families in southern Lebanon rely on agriculture as their main source of income. All of the main crops grown in the region -- olives, bananas, citrus fruits, tobacco and wheat -- could not be harvested as normal because the land on which they were grown were contaminated by cluster bombs.
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