Students stage mass "die-in"

Around 100 people gathered at Amnesty International's British headquarters for the stunt - just a fraction of the 1,500 people killed by weapons each day, according to the group.

Protester David Grimason, whose two-year-old son Alistair was shot dead in a Turkish cafe in 2003, said the UN's treaty talks in New York later this month were a world away from the victims.

"There's torture, rape and intimidation, all with weapons that are being misused.

"The treaty will try to regulate the flow of arms - the import and export between nations - to stop weapons getting into the hands of people like the man who killed my son."

"If governments can tidy up the arms industry, regulate it and stop reckless transfers, then we can maybe see an end to these kind of abuses," he said.