BRASILIA, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Brazil will not join the treaty prohibiting the manufacture, use and storage of cluster bombs, but may do so in the future "for humanitarian reasons," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Wednesday.

    At a hearing in the Brazilian congress, Amorim acknowledged that such a weapon "is so inhumane" that the Brazilian government has decided to reconsider its position.

    The cluster bombs contain munitions that will be scattered in an extensive area, but the danger is compounded because they will become a danger to the civilian population by a long time if they do not explode.

    For the South American country, one of reasons it objected to the treaty was that the commitment to be signed in Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday was not negotiated in the framework of the United Nations.

    Amorim also questioned the drafting of the treaty, saying it does not incorporate the type of bombs the main promoters such as France, Germany and Britain manufacture.

    The Brazilian government could sign the treaty in the future ifit includes a clause giving the producing countries time to adapt to the standards set in the document, Amorim said.

Over hundred countries begin to sign cluster bomb treaty in Oslo

    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.