clipped from: www.news.com.au THE US says it will make its cluster bombs safer but has resisted pressure to ban them completely.
Cluster bombs spread tiny bomblets across large areas when dropped from planes or fired from artillery.
But they sometimes do not all explode on impact, posing a lingering risk to civilians, especially children, after a conflict.
Under the new policy, from 2018 more than 99 per cent of cluster bombs used by the US military would have to meet standards requiring that they contain bomblets that explode on or just before impact, defence officials said.
Human rights advocates criticised the change, saying it was unacceptable for the US, the leading user and exporter of the bombs, to wait 10 years to accept a standard lower than an all-out ban advocated by the UN.
The UN Development Program says cluster munitions have caused more than 13,000 injuries and deaths around the world, the vast majority of them in Laos, Vietnam and Afghanistan.