Top banks fund cluster bombs as ban nears -

[Ichingcarpenter]

LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded cluster bomb-makers to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years despite an international accord to ban the weapons, a study said on Thursday.

The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sachs , the study said on Thursday.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.

Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate comment.

Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so. Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.

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