STOCKHOLM, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Representatives from more than one hundred countries began to sign Wednesday a treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs, according to reports reaching here from Oslo.

    The representatives assembled in Norway's capital Oslo and start signing the treaty which the Norwegian government took the initiative to. The signing ceremony would go on Thursday, reported Norwegian news agency NTB.

    The treaty will come into force six months after 30 of these states ratify the pact, NTB said, adding that Norway was the first nation to sign on, followed by Laos and Lebanon.

    "The world will never be the same after this. The treaty will make the world a safer and better place to live," Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was quoted by NTB as saying after he had signed the treaty.

    The treaty bans members from using, stockpiling, producing or transferring cluster weapons, small explosives which are designed to cover a large area in a short period of time and are particularly dangerous to civilians and children, long after periods of conflict.

U.S. remains opposed to ban on cluster munitions

    WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- The United States will still refuse to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Norway to ban cluster bombs this week, because the signing endangers American soldiers, the State Department said Tuesday.

    "Although we share the humanitarian concerns of states signing the CCM, we will not be joining them," the State Department said in a statement.  Full story