Chiquita in Colombia: Terrorism Gone Bananas?

What happens when "Business as Usual" clashes with the vocabulary of the "War on Terror"? We got a glimpse of one case this March when the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International, Inc., paid a $25 million settlement to the United States Justice Department for paying off right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, groups which Washington classifies as "terrorist organizations."

Chiquita is one biggest and most powerful food marketing and distributing companies in the world, and one of the world’s largest banana producers. The company shows annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion and about 25,000 employees operating in more than 70 countries.[1] The banana market, worth about $5 billion a year in 2001, is the most important global fruit export. The majority of the 14 million tons of bananas exported every year come from Latin America.[2]

The charges state that from 1997 to 2004 several unnamed, high-ranking corporate officers from Chiquita and its Colombian Banadex subsidiary made monthly payments, totaling $1.7 million, to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).[3] Even though Chiquita's outside lawyers insisted that payments stop in 2001, Banadex continued write checks to the AUC, though Chiquita executives later decided that cash was a better idea.[4] (read)

Written by April Howard
Tuesday, 03 April 2007

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Volan's last will.

This is a picture of the envelope I received. On September the 29th I received a letter sent from London Metropolitan Police’s forensic department. The envelope contains Volan’s death report. I am still recovering from such a terrible moment. As Volan’s closest (and perhaps sole) friend I am in the obligation of publishing these lines on his own blog, as it was his last will. In strange circumstances my dearest friend Volan passed away in the dawn of the 23rd of September in Homerton Hospital in London. His body was carted off from the churchyard of Saint Paul’s Cathedral after a mad night out with Siobhan (Sweeny), -an Irish-Scottish blues singer whose Volan had just met few hours before in the surrounding areas of Anexo Bar, close to Farringdon Station. At the moment that the ambulance arrived at the place Volan showed a critical state and almost without vital signals dying a while after indoors, in the above mentioned hospital. The death certificated shows a very cryptic language ...

let's give a break to our mother

This is an e-mail and digital invitation going on around the world. Let's switch off the lights, tv, lap tops and other electrical devices tomorrow the 17th of April 2007 from 19:53 to 20:00 . It is just 7 minutes and the benefits for the planet will be notorious. Please spread the word!. I am not fond chained e-mails but I reckon this is a very good reason. Esta es una cyber-invitacion que esta dandole la vuelta a mundo. Apagemos las luces, televisores, computadores personales y demas aparatos electricos manana 17 de Abril de 2007 desde las 19:53 hasta las 20:00. Son solo 7 minutos y los beneficios para el planeta seran notorios. Comuniquenlo a sus amigos, envien e-mails o escribanlo en sus blogs... No soy muy amigo de las cadenas de correos electronicos pero considero que esta es una buena causa.

norman mclaren

Norman McLaren was one of the most significant abstract filmmakers of the British inter-war period. Born in 1914 in Stirling, Scotland, he entered the Glasgow School of Fine Arts in 1932, where he became interested in film and joined the School's Kine Society. His earliest extant film, Seven Till Five (1933), a "day in the life of an art school", was clearly influenced by Eisenstein and displays a strongly formalist attitude. (more)

Nevermind the bollocks!

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