by the El Reportero news services
A U.S. jury awarded punitive damages to Nicaraguans who claimed pesticides made them sterile.
On Thursday the jury found that American food giant Dole should pay $2.5 million in punitive damages to five workers who claimed they were made sterile by use of a pesticide on Nicaraguan banana plantations in the 1970s.
The Superior Court jury awarded $3.3 million in actual damages to six workers last week, most of it to be paid by California-based Dole Fresh Fruit Co. and the remainder by Dow Chemical Co. of Michigan. The jury’s finding that Dole acted maliciously in harming five of the six allowed punitive damages to be considered for the five.
The punitive damages were to be split evenly among the five workers exposed to the pesticide known as DBCP.
Lawyers for both sides called it a win. Duane Miller, the workers’ attorney, said it sends a message that multinational corporations such as Dole are accountable for what they do, even overseas.
Nicaragua foreign minister to discuss closer trade in Moscow
MOSCOW – Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos Lopez arrives on an official visit to Moscow Sunday to discuss closer trade and the possibility of larger defense and machinery product deliveries from Russia.
At the Russian-Nicaraguan political consultations held in May at the level of deputy foreign ministers, the parties expressed their desire to expand cooperation in the energy sphere, the construction of hydropower facilities, tourism development, transport infrastructure modernization and an increase in Russia’s exports of machinery, equipment and technologies.
During his visit, which will last until November 21, López is expected to discuss “measures to make trade more stable and balanced through diversification of its commodity structure, especially via the deliveries of engineering and defense products from Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said.
