Cluster munitions are not banned weapons, but their use in civilian areas violates the international ban on the use of indiscriminate weapons. According to the UN, 90 percent of the cluster bombs were dropped in the last 72 hours of the war - when all parties knew a cease-fire was imminent. Reports last week that Hizbullah fired cluster bombs at civilian areas in northern Israel suggests these weapons are spreading to nonstate armed groups, further multiplying the danger they pose.
After initially denying that it used cluster bombs, Israel later said that all weapons they use are legal. But the military purpose of their use in these circumstances is inexplicable. Although Israel has provided some maps of the affected areas, the UN says it has still not provided specific coordinates that would expedite clearing. (An Israeli official told the German newspaper Der Spiegel that granting the request could jeopardize Israeli intelligence about Hizbullah.)
The US State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls is investigating the use of American-made cluster munitions in southern Lebanon, apparently to determine whether their use violates the terms in the (secret) agreements for their use. A congressional investigation into the munitions' use after Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon pressured the Reagan administration to ban sales of cluster weapons to Israel for six years. Last month, Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Dianne Feinstein of California submitted an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill designed to prevent cluster-bomb use in or near populated areas. It failed.

• It is estimated that there are between 15,000 and 20,000 new casualties caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance each year. That means there are some 1,500 new casualties each month, more than 40 new casualties a day, at least two new casualties per hour.
• Most of the casualties are civilians and most live in countries that are now at peace.

At present UNICEF is undertaking mine action in 30 mine affected countries world-wide, coordinating a variety of programmes focused on Mine Risk Education, advocacy and survivor assistance.  These countries and regions: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola,  Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nicaragua, North Caucasus (Ingushetia/Chechnya), Occupied Palestinian Territories, Panama, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Golan Heights (Syria) and Vietnam.

In 2005, Russia and France have sold more weapons to the developing world than the United States, writes the NY Times on October 29, 2006:

Russia surpassed the United States in 2005 as the leader in weapons deals with the developing world, and its new agreements included selling $700 million in surface-to-air missiles to Iran and eight new aerial refueling tankers to China, according to a new Congressional study. Those weapons deals were part of the highly competitive global arms bazaar in the developing world that grew to $30.2 billion in 2005, up from $26.4 billion in 2004. It is a market that the United States has regularly dominated.
Russia’s agreements with Iran are not the biggest part of its total sales — India and China are its principal buyers. But the sales to improve Iran’s air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. (...)
The report, entitled “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations,” found that Russia’s arms agreements with the developing world totaled $7 billion in 2005, an increase from its $5.4 billion in sales in 2004. That figure surpassed the United States’ annual sales agreements to the developing world for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. France ranked second in arms transfer agreements to developing nations, with $6.3 billion, and the United States was third, with $6.2 billion.

The four major West European suppliers (France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy), as a group, registered a significant increase in their collective share of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations between 2004 and 2005. This group’s share rose from 22.3% in 2004 to 34.1% in 2005. The collective value of this group’s arms transfer agreements with developing nations in 2005 was $10.3 billion compared with a total of about $5.9 billion in 2004. Of these four nations, France was the leading supplier with $6.3 billion in agreements in 2005, a substantial increase from $1 billion in agreements in 2004. A portion of France’s total in 2005 was attributable to a $3.5 billion agreement with India for 6 Scorpene diesel attack submarines. The United Kingdom registered $2.8 billion in arms agreements in 2005, a significant portion reflects orders placed under the Al Yamamah military procurement arrangement with Saudi Arabia. Germany registered $700 million in arms agreements in 2005 based on a number of smaller contracts for a variety of naval and ground forces equipment, increasing its agreements’ total notably from $100 million in 2004. Italy registered $500 million in arms transfer agreements in 2005, based primarily on sales of helicopters to several established clients.

• Global military spending is estimated to exceed $1 trillion this year - roughly 15 times annual international aid expenditure.
• There are enough bullets in the world to shoot all 6 billion of us twice.
• On average, up to 1,000 people die every day as a direct result of armed violence.
• Military spending is expected to overtake peak Cold War levels by the end of 2006.
• Between them, countries in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa spent an estimated $22.5 billion on arms during 2004. This sum would have enabled those countries to put every child in school and reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 - two of the Millennium Development Goals.
• Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan spent more on their military than on healthcare between 2002-03.
• The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and Germany accounted for an estimated 82 per cent of all major conventional arms transfers in 2005.

While the U.S. hangs its foreign policy on preventing the spread of "weapons of mass destruction" (a worthy goal, however grossly the Bush administration goes about achieving it), it continues to ignore a more immediate threat—the proliferation of small arms and light weapons—that deserves serious attention as well. These low-tech arms have been described as "slow motion weapons of mass destruction," because they are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths over the past dozen years, from the genocide in Rwanda to the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet yesterday [October 26, 2006], the United States, the world's largest supplier of small arms, was the only country to vote against an historic United Nations proposal to curb traffic in arms.
The United Nations vote was the culmination of the work of a network of prominent individuals and diverse non-governmental organizations. They set out to address the problem of small arms and light weapons—as well as larger systems like tanks, fighter planes and attack helicopters—by putting forward a proposal for an Arms Trade Treaty. The thrust of the proposed treaty is to curb arms transfers to major human rights abusers and areas of conflict. It would also urge weapons suppliers to limit weapons sales that are likely to undermine development in poor nations. (...) As a first step—by a vote of 139 to 1 with 24 abstentions—the U.N. General Assembly agreed yesterday to create a two-part process aimed at pursuing such a treaty. The United States was the only vote in opposition to the resolution. (...) 
U.S. security has suffered more harm than good from the widespread availability of small arms and light weapons, which often end up being used against U.S. troops. A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University has found that over half of U.S. casualties in Iraq have been inflicted by AK-47s. In fact, American-made weapons also frequently end up pointing at American soldiers. For example, the early foundations of al-Qaida were built in part on relationships and weaponry that came from the billions of dollars in U.S. support for the Afghan mujahadin during the war to expel Soviet forces from that country. U.S. military personnel in Somalia and Panama faced U.S.-supplied weaponry that had been given to those nations when they were U.S. allies. In Panama, the issue at hand was a change in Panamanian and U.S. government policies. In Somalia, warlords got hold of U.S.-origin weapons in the wake of the overthrow of the Siad Barre dictatorship. These patterns are likely to continue if nothing is done to stem the wholesale trade in weapons. (...)
So, the question remains, why is the United States opposed to taking measures to stop this deadly trade? The first answer is strategic. The executive branch wants to preserve its “freedom of action” to arm U.S.-allied groups like the Nicaraguan contras, the Afghan mujahadin, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA movement in Angola, the Iraqi National Congress and groups opposed to the current regime in Iran. Even if one accepts the right of the United States to attempt to overthrow governments that oppose its short-term political or economic imperatives—which this author does not—the short-term “benefits” of these arms-supply relationships are inevitably outweighed by the long-term costs to U.S. and global interests. Unfortunately, short-sighted policymakers in Washington—of both parties—have failed to understand or accept this fundamental principle. 
As the world’s number one arms exporting nation, the United States has a special responsibility to take the lead in regulating the trade. A 2005 report  by the World Policy Institute found that of the largest U.S. arms recipients in the developing world, over 70 percent were undemocratic regimes, major human rights abusers or both. The United States is not alone in the business of unsavory arms exports. A recent report by the research group Saferworld found that in the past year, the United Kingdom provided weapons to 19 of 20 nations that had been singled out by its own government as “major countries of concern” for human rights abuses. And the Control Arms Campaign has found Russian, Greek, Chinese and U.S.-origin bullets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is engaged in one of the deadliest civil wars in living memory. 
A second factor in U.S. opposition to any substantial measures to curb the weapons trade is the role of the domestic gun lobby. Both the National Rifle Association and its allied organization, the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, have gone on record against an Arms Trade Treaty. National Rifle Association propaganda has made the false claim that a treaty would lead to the confiscation of guns owned by U.S. citizens.