Inbrief

A Nicaraguan court has ordered three US multinationals – Dole Food, Shell Chemicals and Standard Fruit – to pay a total of $83million (£46m) to 80 farmers affected by the pesticide Nemagon used on banana plantations in the 1970s. The farmers were awarded about $1m each by Managua civil court justice Vida Benavente. Nemagon has been linked to kidney ailments, cancer and impotence, and was banned in the US in 1979.