Representatives of the arms industry and UK government are to speak at a seminar that extols the sale of arms to repressive regimes in the Middle East.
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.