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Ikea beefs up store security following blasts

Swedish furniture giant Ikea said Friday it had raised its security level across Europe to make its customers feel safer after booby-trapped products at several of its stores have caused small explosions in recent weeks.

Ikea beefs up store security following blasts

“Since security is of the utmost importance to us and we want to ensure that our customers feel safe coming to Ikea, we have decided to raise the security level … at all of our stores in Europe,” company spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson told AFP.

“We are doing that by among other things raising the number of guards,” she said, refusing to divulge what other additional security measures were being taken.

The move comes after a string of small explosions at Ikea stores.

On June 10, a blast in the kitchen equipment department of an Ikea store in Dresden, Germany, reportedly left two customers needing hospital treatment, while booby-trapped alarm clocks also blew up at Ikea stores in Belgium, France and The Netherlands on May 30, but caused no damage or injuries.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the explosions.

Magnusson stressed Friday that the company had not received “any threats or any other indication that there is an increased danger,” but had decided to raise security “simply as a safety precaution aimed at making people feel safer.”

She said the company was closely monitoring police probes into the blasts, but would not comment on whether any advances had been made.

According to some media reports this week, German police are toying with the theory the blasts might be targeted at Ikea’s 85-year-old founder Ingvar Kamprad over his well-known Nazi sympathies in his youth.

Ikea had Thursday asked German police if there was any basis to the reports, “and we were told there wasn’t,” Magnusson said.

Kamprad himself told the Swedish daily Expressen he did not think there were any concrete suspicions yet and that he was not part of the probe.

“The police have not at all asked me about what I know and don’t know,” he said.

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POLITICS

France vows to block EU-South America trade deal in current form

France has vowed to prevent a trade deal between the European Union and the South American Mercosur bloc from being signed with its current terms, as the country is rocked by farmer protests.

France vows to block EU-South America trade deal in current form

The trade deal, which would include agricultural powers Argentina and Brazil, is among a litany of complaints by farmers in France and elsewhere in Europe who have been blocking roads to demand better conditions for their sector.

They fear it would further depress their produce prices amid increased competition from exporting nations that are not bound by strict and costly EU environmental laws.

READ ALSO Should I cancel my trip to France because of farmers’ protests?

“This Mercosur deal, as it stands, is not good for our farmers. It cannot be signed as is, it won’t be signed as is,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told broadcasters CNews and Europe 1.

The European Commission acknowledged on Tuesday that the conditions to conclude the deal with Mercosur, which also includes Paraguay and Uruguay, “are not quite there yet”.

The talks, however, are continuing, the commission said.

READ ALSO 5 minutes to understand French farmer protests

President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that France opposes the deal because it “doesn’t make Mercosur farmers and companies abide by the same rules as ours”.

The EU and the South American nations have been negotiating since 2000.

The contours of a deal were agreed in 2019, but a final version still needs to be ratified.

The accord aims to cut import tariffs on – mostly European – industrial and pharmaceutical goods, and on agricultural products.

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