11.   U.S.-based banana companies, including Chiquita Brands International Inc., argued the quotas hurt their business by reducing banana shipments from Latin America to Europe.

12.   U.S. banana companies have argued the quotas hurt business by reducing shipments from Latin America to Europe.

13.   An Italian television cameraman killed in Mogadishu may have been a victim of mistaken identity in a violent dispute between banana companies.

14.   But the administration of President Clinton launched an inquiry last month into allegations by U.S. banana companies that the European banana quotas were hurting them.

15.   Chiquita and other U.S. banana exporting companies have threatened the protected status of the Caribbean banana producers in the lucrative European Union market.

16.   Chiquita officials have repeatedly denied a link between the quota system and its decision to break its contract with the Costa Rican banana company.

17.   Chiquita Brands International Inc. executive Steven G. Warshaw has succeeded Carl H. Lindner Jr. as chief executive officer, the banana exporting company announced Monday.

18.   Five workers on a hunger strike to demand Suriname reopen its troubled banana company were hospitalized when a doctor determined their condition was serious, the doctor said Thursday.

19.   Gunmen ambushed a convoy of trucks belonging to a banana export company south of Mogadishu, killing two Somali executives and wounding a third, the company said Wednesday.

20.   The banana export company is moving to expand in the organic market in hopes of overcoming declining production and fading preferential trade agreements in Europe.