100 countries set to sign cluster bomb ban:Oslo

More than 100 countries are expected to sign a treaty banning cluster bombs today in a move that supporters hope will stigmatise the

weapons to the point that even non-signers like the US, Russia and China will abandon them.

"Once you get half the world on board, its hard to ignore a ban," said Australian Daniel Barty, an anti-cluster bomb campaigner. He arrived in Oslo on Tuesday after spending two months crisscrossing Europe in a white van covered with "Ban cluster bombs" stickers in half a dozen languages.

Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles that scatter them over vast areas. Some fail to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children attracted by their small size and bright colours.

Washington and Moscow say cluster bombs have legitimate military uses such as repelling advancing troop columns.

Stephen Mull, an assistant US secretary of state, told reporters in May that a comprehensive ban would hurt world security and endanger US military cooperation on humanitarian work with countries that sign the accord.

About 1,000 people, including British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, were expected at the signing ceremony.

Norway started a campaign against cluster bombs in February 2007, in part inspired by the successful grass-roots movement that led to a 1997 treaty negotiated in Oslo barring anti-personnel mines. Like cluster bombs, those mines are blamed for killing more civilians than soldiers.