MANAGUA, Nicaragua -

Nicaragua has passed a law allowing former banana workers to launch class action lawsuits against international firms over pesticides used in plantations.

Victorino Espinales, head of an association of banana workers, said on Friday that Congress approved the law late on Thursday, allowing lawsuits to be brought by Nicaraguans who say they were made ill by DBCP, or dibromochloropropane, a pesticide used on banana plantations in the 1970s......