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The food company Chiquita Brands International, Inc. has pleaded guilty to funding a Colombian paramilitary group designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. According to U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors, the company's Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, paid approximately $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) between 1997 and 2004. In its 2004 corporate social responsibility report, Chiquita stated that it had been "forced" to make the payments and had disclosed them to the Justice Department in early 2003. However, the Miami Herald reports that senior managers authorised payments "even after outside attorneys advised the company to halt the flow of money." In June 2004, Chiquita sold Banadex. In a deal struck with prosecutors, but not yet accepted by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Chiquita has agreed to pay a $25 million fine. The names of the executives who approved the payments would not be revealed.

Two former food industry websites -- Best Food Nation and the Grow America Project -- are being merged and re-birthed as a new front group, the Center for Food Integrity (CFI). CFI's web domain was registered earlier this month by Charlie Arnot, who runs a small Missouri-based PR firm, CMA Consulting. CFI, which lists Monsanto as one of its supporters, states that it aims "to build consumer trust and confidence in the contemporary U.S. food system." Joseph Mendelson, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, a consumer group, told Food NavigatorUSA.com that CFI is simply "a PR entity to try and battle regulations designed to create a safer food supply ... This is a way for it to promote its agenda under a green wash label." Mendelson also believes that the CFI's name was "chosen to try to distract attention from groups like ours and to confuse consumers." (Note: Mendelson is on the Center for Media and Democracy's Board of Directors.)