News in Brief

Date: 15 June 2021 - 21:31

News ID: ۹۱۳۲۸

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The FBI has warned that followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory could again engage in violence against political opponents out of frustration that the theory’s predictions have not come true. Believers in the conspiracy theory - which casts former President Donald Trump as a savior figure and elite Democrats as a cabal of Satanist pedophiles and cannibals - played a prominent role in the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. In a June 4 bulletin distributed to members of Congress and seen by Reuters, the FBI said its experts believe that some believers in predictions of political upheavals promoted on QAnon websites and bulletin boards believe they can “no longer ‘trust the plan.’”

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VERSAILLES, France (AP) — A French court ordered home furnishings giant Ikea to pay some 1.1 million euros ($1.3 million) in fines and damages Tuesday over a campaign to spy on union representatives, employees and some unhappy customers in France. Two former Ikea France executives were convicted and fined over the scheme and given suspended prison sentences. Among the other 13 defendants in the high-profile trial, some were acquitted and others given suspended sentences. Adel Amara, a former Ikea employee who helped expose the wrongdoing, called the ruling “a big step in defense of the citizen....It makes me glad that there is justice in France.” The panel of judges at the Versailles court found that between 2009 and 2012, Ikea’s French subsidiary used espionage to sift out trouble-makers in the employee ranks and to profile squabbling customers.

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BERLIN (AP) — Authorities in Germany said Tuesday that the number of far-right extremists in the country increased last year as neo-Nazis sought to join protests against pandemic-related restrictions. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said authorities counted 33,300 far-right extremists in 2020, an increase of almost 4% from the previous year. “Far-right extremists were repeatedly able to protest side-by-side” with non-extremist opponents of the pandemic restrictions, Seehofer said. The minister added that it was worrying how the protesters often didn’t distance themselves from the far-right extremists marching among them. According to data published in an annual report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency known by its German acronym BfV, some 40% of the far-right extremists in Germany are believed to support the use of violence for political ends.

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MANAGUA (Dispatches) -- Nicaragua says the recently detained opposition figures are “usurpers” funded by the United States to overthrow President Daniel Ortega. The opposition figures received “millions of dollars in cash from the American public through USAID,” the government said in a document. Nicaragua arrested five opposition figures over the weekend on charges of “inciting foreign intervention,” bringing to 13 the number of dissidents detained since June 2. Four presidential hopefuls are among the detainees, including Cristiana Chamorro, the daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. The Sunday arrests included four from the Unamos opposition party, which is largely made up of dissidents who split from Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) as they disagreed with his leadership. On June 9, the U.S. slapped sanctions on four top Nicaraguan officials over the latest crackdown. Washington has imposed sanctions against Nicaragua’s government and Ortega’s inner circle since 2018 when deadly protests engulfed the country.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- India’s top court said on Tuesday it has closed all proceedings against two Italian marines over the shooting of two fishermen off the southern Indian coast in 2012, after Rome paid $1.36 million in compensation. Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre were arrested in February 2012 over the shooting. They said the killings were accidental, as they mistook the fishermen for pirates and fired warning shots while on duty on the Italian oil tanker “Enrica Lexie”. The case caused friction between the two countries for years. European Union commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said in a tweet on Tuesday the verdict is “a success of Italian diplomacy.”

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan’s lower house of parliament voted down on Tuesday a no-confidence motion brought against the cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga by opposition parties angered over its refusal to extend the current parliamentary session. The parties had sought a three-month extension of the session beyond its scheduled end on Wednesday, to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic as Japan rushes to ramp up vaccinations ahead of the Tokyo Olympics opening on July 23. “They are refusing our calls to extend parliament in the face of one of the worst crises for decades,” Yukio Edano, leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told the lower house before the vote. Though Japan has not suffered the ravages of other nations over the coronavirus, its slowness in vaccinating citizens and patchy response have dented support for Suga. A survey by NHK public television showed 37% of respondents approved of Suga’s government while 45% disapproved.