An Australian church leader has strongly criticised one of the country's largest financial institutions for providing financial support to an international firm that manufactures cluster bombs despite an international ban on them.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions has been welcomed as a "humane and historic victory" by the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia.

Despite the official end of Russian military operations in Georgia, campaigners say Russia has been dropping cluster bombs on civilians in the Georgian republic - killing, wounding and spreading dangerous unexploded bomblets.

The Pentagon has announced that the US military will continue to use and export even the most unreliable cluster bombs over the next decade. The policy decision comes shortly after 111 countries agreed to a global treaty banning cluster bombs.

Churches around the world have welcomed the multilateral agreement on cluster munitions reached this week in Dublin, but want to see it fully implented says World Council of Churches head the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia.

More than half the world’s governments have agreed to ban the production, use, stockpiling and export of all existing cluster munitions. Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, representatives of 110 nations completed negotiations yesterday.

The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church have welcomed the commitment by the UK Government to withdraw the remaining two cluster munitions from its arsenal.

The government is preparing to scrap Britain's entire arsenal of cluster bombs that have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians, reports the Guardian newspaper. Officials are paving the way for the radical step at talks in Dublin.

Hopes for a global agreement to outlaw cluster bombs have been given a boost after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a total ban on the use of the weapons by the British military.

Representatives of more than 100 governments gathered in Dublin, Ireland yesterday to begin writing the final text of a global treaty banning cluster bombs that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.