Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has passed legislation that prohibits Californian pension funds from investing in companies with active businesses in Sudan, the latest US state to boycott the African country.

Governor Schwarzenegger, who was joined by actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle for the bill signing ceremony, said: "Darfur is a humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands of men, women and children dead and dying and millions more homeless or refugees. Divesting will show our defiance against the murderers and their inhumanity."