After Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot in Venice on Friday, a few hundred protesters gathered Saturday at a city train station for a march, united with one message for the Amazon billionaire and his bride: go away.

“Bezos, f**k off,” they chanted in Italian. “Out of our lagoon!”

One bearded man toted a Shrek-themed placard with the same message: “Get Out of Our Lagoon,” the “a” in lagoon sprouting Shrek ears, with a Spotify link below for the theme song from the first movie in the series, Smash Mouth’s “All Star.”

“Bezos goes hand-in-hand with (US President Donald) Trump, who’s fueling more money in war,” one woman bellowed into a microphone by the station. “We are for peace.”

Sofia D’Amato, a 22-year-old Venetian, emphasized that the protests weren’t about envy for Bezos’ wealth or power.

Venice’s Ministry of Tourism says the three-day wedding, which reportedly cost $55 million, could provide a boost of almost 68% of the city’s annual tourism turnover. On top of that, Sanchez and Bezos gave 1 million euros each to three Venetian cultural institutions, according to Reuters; a total of 3 million euros worth of donations.

Their philanthropy left D’Amato unimpressed.

“They say that Jeff Bezos donated money to Venice,” D’Amato said. “It was donated after our dissent. Such a sum for a magnate is paltry.”

Protesters drew a stark contrast between the decadence of Bezos and Sanchez’s wedding the day before and the harsh realities of working at the billionaire’s company.

“We can barely pay the rent,” one woman, who identified herself as an Amazon worker, told a crowd of demonstrators. “Many of us come from far away to reach the warehouse. We make do … we don’t see these millions.”

Some protesters joined in an old leftist chant as the demonstration moved toward the Ponte delle Guglie: “The people united will never be defeated.”

At least one protester took aim at the couple’s fashion sense with a sign declaring that “Money Can’t Buy Style.”

Many held aloft Amazon boxes with various messages inscribed: “Rejected,” “No Space for Bezos.”

Multiple flags were visible among the protesters: Palestinian flags, pride flags, anti-fascist flags and Venice’s fimbriated red standard were among the popular choices. A few individuals waved a modified version, the sword-bearing golden lion at its hoist wearing a black balaclava.

Venice city officials were unamused by the protesters, denouncing them in a press release as “ridiculous” and “grotesque.”

“Contesting a wedding (any wedding) is already ridiculous in itself. But here we have exceeded all limits of common sense,” read a municipal statement released Saturday. “We have descended into the folklore of ‘No to everything.’”

Top Qatari officials had been meeting with the country’s prime minister on Monday afternoon to find ways of de-escalating a conflict between Iran and Israel, when defense ministry personnel called to warn of incoming Iranian missiles.

The attack, the first on the Gulf, caught them by surprise, according to Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari, who recalls feeling the prime minister’s residence shake with the interceptions that quickly followed overhead.

Unease had gripped the Gulf Arab states that morning. The glitzy, oil-rich capitals feared a worst-case scenario: an Iranian missile strike shattering their image of stability after 12 days of war between Israel and Iran, which had culminated in a series of US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Bahrain, where the US Naval Command is located, told residents not to use main roads and Kuwait, which hosts several US military bases, activated shelters in ministerial complexes. In nearby Dubai and Abu Dhabi, some residents were booking early flights out and others stocking up on supplies.

In Doha, nervous residents were on high alert. US and UK citizens in the country had been told to seek shelter and American military personnel had been evacuated from the US-run Al Udeid Base.

Qatar’s early warning military radar system, one of the most advanced in the region, and intelligence gathered indicated that Iranian missile batteries had moved toward Qatar earlier that day, the spokesperson said – but nothing was certain until shortly before the strikes.

“It could’ve been misdirected to lead us away from the actual target. There was still a lot of targets in the region…but towards the end it was very clear, their missile systems were hot and we had a very clear idea an hour before the attack, Al Udeid Base was going to be targeted,” a Qatari official with knowledge of defense operations said.

Responding to the attack

Around 7 p.m. local time, Qatari officials were informed by their military that Iran’s missiles were airborne and heading towards Al Udeid base, Al-Ansari said.

Qatar’s armed forces deployed 300 service members and activated multiple Qatari Patriot anti-air missile batteries across two sites to counter the 19 Iranian missiles roaring toward the country, according to Al-Ansari. US President Donald Trump has said that 14 missiles were fired from Iran.

Seven missiles were intercepted over the Persian Gulf before reaching Qatari soil, he said. Another 11 were intercepted over Doha without causing damage and one landed in an uninhibited area of the base causing minimal damage.

According to Trump, Iran had given the US early notice ahead of the attack. While Doha received intel from Washington, it did not receive any warning directly from the Iranians, according to Al-Ansari – though officials were well aware that the US bases in the region could be targeted.

“The Iranians told us months ago … if there was an attack by the US on Iranian soil that would make bases hosting American forces in the region legitimate targets,” Al-Ansari said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that warning was reiterated to his Gulf counterparts in an Istanbul meeting a day before Iranian strikes on Qatar.

Iran’s National Security Council said after the intercepted attack that its strikes had posed “no dangerous aspect to our friendly and brotherly country of Qatar and its noble people.”

Still, Al-Ansari rejects speculation that Qatar – given its working relationship with Tehran – might have given a greenlight for the strikes in order to create an off-ramp for regional escalation.

“We do not take it lightly for our country to be attacked by missiles from any side and we would never do that as part of political posturing or a game in the region,” he said.

“We would not put our people in the line of danger. I would not put my daughter under missiles coming from the sky just to come out with a political outcome. This was a complete surprise to us,” Ansari said.

A ceasefire quickly follows

In the moments after the attack, Trump called Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani telling him the Israelis were willing to agree to a ceasefire and asked him to do the same for the Iranians, according to Al-Ansari.

“As we were discussing how to retaliate to this attack … this is when we get a call from the United States that a possible ceasefire, a possible avenue to regional security had opened,” Ansari said.

Doha’s role as mediator quickly became key in the aftermath of the strikes. Qatar’s chief negotiator Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi spoke to the Iranians while the Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was speaking to US Vice President JD Vance. Soon, “we were able to secure a deal,” Al-Ansaris says – and in the nick of time.

“All options were on the table that night … we could have immediately retaliated or pulled back and say we’re not talking to a country that sent 19 missiles our way. But we also realized that was a moment that could create momentum for peace in a region that hasn’t been there for two years now,” Ansari said.

Shortly after, Trump declared on social media that a ceasefire between Iran and Israel had been brokered.

Riot police fired tear gas at thousands of anti-government protesters in Serbia’s capital on Saturday.

The major rally in Belgrade against Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, was called to back a demand for an early parliamentary election.

The protest by tens of thousands was held after nearly eight months of persistent demonstrations led by Serbia’s university students that have rattled Vucic’s firm grip on power in the Balkan country.

The huge crowd chanted “We want elections!” as they filled the capital’s central Slavija Square and several blocks around it, with many unable to reach the venue.

Tensions were high before and during the gathering. Riot police deployed around government buildings and close to a camp of Vucic’s loyalists in central Belgrade. Skirmishes erupted between riot officers and groups of protesters near the camp.

“Elections are a clear way out of the social crisis caused by the deeds of the government, which is undoubtedly against the interests of their own people,” said one of the students, who didn’t give her name while giving a speech on a stage to the crowd. “Today, on June 28, 2025, we declare the current authorities illegitimate.”

At the end of the official part of the rally, students told the crowd to “take freedom into your own hands.”

University students have been a key force behind nationwide anti-corruption demonstrations that started after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people on Nov. 1.

Many blamed the concrete roof crash on rampant government corruption and negligence in state infrastructure projects, leading to recurring mass protests.

“We are here today because we cannot take it any more,” Darko Kovacevic said. “This has been going on for too long. We are mired in corruption.”

Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have repeatedly refused the demand for an early vote and accused protesters of planning to spur violence on orders from abroad, which they didn’t specify.

Vucic’s authorities have launched a crackdown on Serbia’s striking universities and other opponents, while increasing pressure on independent media as they tried to curb the demonstrations.

While numbers have shrunk in recent weeks, the massive showing for Saturday’s anti-Vucic rally suggested that the resolve persists, despite relentless pressure and after nearly eight months of almost daily protests.

Serbian police, which is firmly controlled by Vucic’s government, said that 36,000 people were present at the start of the protest on Saturday.

Saturday marks St. Vitus Day, a religious holiday and the date when Serbs mark a 14th-century battle against Ottoman Turks in Kosovo that was the start of hundreds of years of Turkish rule, holding symbolic importance.

In their speeches, some of the speakers at the student rally on Saturday evoked the theme, which was also used to fuel Serbian nationalism in the 1990s that later led to the incitement of ethnic wars following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Hours before the student-led rally, Vucic’s party bused in scores of its own supporters to Belgrade from other parts of the country, many wearing T-shirts reading: “We won’t give up Serbia.” They were joining a camp of Vucic’s loyalists in central Belgrade where they have been staying in tents since mid-March.

In a show of business as usual, Vucic handed out presidential awards in the capital to people he deemed worthy, including artists and journalists.

“People need not worry – the state will be defended and thugs brought to justice,” Vucic told reporters on Saturday.

Serbian presidential and parliamentary elections are due in 2027.

Earlier this week, police arrested several people accused of allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and banned entry into the country, without explanation, to several people from Croatia and a theater director from Montenegro.

Serbia’s railway company halted train service over an alleged bomb threat in what critics said was an apparent bid to prevent people from traveling to Belgrade for the rally.

Authorities made similar moves back in March, before what was the biggest ever anti-government protest in the Balkan country, which drew hundreds of thousands of people.

Vucic’s loyalists then set up a camp in a park outside his office, which still stands. The otherwise peaceful gathering on March 15 came to an abrupt end when part of the crowd suddenly scattered in panic, triggering allegations that authorities used a sonic weapon against peaceful protesters – an accusation officials have denied.

Vucic, a former extreme nationalist, has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power more than a decade ago. Though he formally says he wants Serbia to join the European Union, critics say Vucic has stifled democratic freedoms as he strengthened ties with Russia and China.

A peace agreement brokered by the White House to stem the bloodshed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a militia allegedly backed by Rwanda occupies vast swaths of land, will be signed in Washington D.C. on Friday by officials of the two African nations.

But many remain unconvinced that the accord – portrayed as a “wonderful treaty” by United States President Donald Trump – can end the complex and long-running conflict, while the militia itself has yet to commit to laying down its weapons.

Trump was upbeat about the prospects for peace when teams from Rwanda and the DRC initialed a draft agreement on June 18, while at the same time suggesting that he would not get credit for his role in ending this or other conflicts.

On June 20, he wrote on Truth Social: “This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World! I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this.”

He added: “I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

Trump touts himself as a “peacemaker” and has expanded his interest in global conflicts to the brutal war in the mineral-rich eastern DRC. His peace deal could also pave the way for America’s economic interests in the region, as it eyes access to the DRC’s critical minerals.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will preside over the signing of the peace agreement by DRC Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner and her Rwandan counterpart Olivier Nduhungirehe on Friday.

More than 7,000 people have been killed, and some one million others displaced since January, when the M23 militia waged a fresh offensive against the Congolese army, seizing control of the two largest cities in the country’s east.

There has been increasing reports of summary executions – even of children – in occupied areas, where aid groups say they are also witnessing an epidemic of rape and sexual violence.

A complex war

The crisis in the eastern DRC, which shares a border with Rwanda and harbors large deposits of minerals critical to the production of electronics, is a fusion of complex issues.

In that genocide, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu militias.

Rwanda criticizes the DRC, which faces problems with militia violence, for integrating a proscribed Hutu militia group into its army to fight against the mainly Tutsi M23.

M23, which first emerged in 2012, is one of the most prominent militias battling for control of the DRC’s mineral wealth. The rebel group also claims to defend the interests of the Tutsis and other Congolese minorities of Rwandan origin.

UN experts and much of the international community believe that Rwanda backs M23 and supports the rebels with troops, leaving the nation on the cusp of war with the DRC over this alleged territorial violation.

The Rwandan government has not acknowledged this claim but insists it protects itself against the Hutu militia operating in the DRC, which it describes as an “existential security threat to Rwanda.”

M23 occupies strategic mining towns in the DRC’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu.

In a report in December, the UN Group of Experts on the DRC said they found evidence that minerals “were fraudulently exported to Rwanda” from the DRC “and mixed with Rwandan production.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame drew outrage last year when he admitted in a public address that Rwanda was a transit point for minerals smuggled from the DRC but insisted his country was not stealing from its neighbor.

What’s contained in the US peace deal?

Washington’s peace accord contains provisions on “respect for territorial integrity and a prohibition of hostilities,” including “disengagement, disarmament, and conditional integration of non-state armed groups,” according to a joint statement issued by the US, Rwanda and the DRC on June 18.

Other points include “facilitation of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as humanitarian access” and the establishment of a “regional economic integration framework” that could attract significant US investments into Rwanda and the DRC.

Asked whether AFC would surrender its arms, Victor Tesongo, a spokesperson for the coalition, said it was “not there yet” and that it was waiting on developments in Doha. He did not confirm whether airports in the eastern DRC that had been shut by the rebels would reopen for aid supply.

Why US efforts may fail

Previous truce agreements have failed to bring lasting peace between M23 and the Congolese armed forces.

In April, the rebels jointly declared a truce after meeting with representatives of the DRC during negotiations led by Qatar. Fighting flared up days after.

Qatar has been facilitating talks after Angolan President João Lourenço quit his mediation role following months of inability to broker peace.

One of those root causes, he said, was the “unfair distribution” of the DRC’s mineral wealth, which he claimed, “benefits a small elite and foreign powers, while ordinary Congolese, especially in the east, suffer displacement and misery.”

The DRC is roughly the size of western Europe and is home to more than 100 million people. The Central African nation is also endowed with the world’s largest reserves of cobalt – used to produce batteries that power cell phones and electric vehicles – and coltan, which is refined into tantalum and has a variety of applications in phones and other devices.

However, according to the World Bank, “most people in DRC have not benefited from this wealth,” and the country ranks among the five poorest nations in the world.

Kubelwa said another trigger for the conflict in the DRC was the country’s “weak institutions” and “suppression of dissent.”

A fragile peace

The DRC foreign minister’s office said it would comment on the deal after the document is signed.

Congolese human rights activist and Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege has described the deal as “vague” and tilted in Rwanda’s favor.

After details of the draft agreement were announced last week, he posted a statement on X criticizing it for failing to recognize “Rwanda’s aggression against the DRC,” which he wrote, “suggests it (the peace accord) benefits the unsanctioned aggressor, who will thus see its past and present crimes whitewashed as ‘economic cooperation.’”

He added: “In its current state, the emerging agreement would amount to granting a reward for aggression, legitimizing the plundering of Congolese natural resources, and forcing the victim to alienate their national heritage by sacrificing justice in order to ensure a precarious and fragile peace.”

For Kubelwa, “a true and lasting solution must go beyond ceasefires and formal agreements. It must include genuine accountability, regional truth-telling, redistribution of national wealth, reform of governance, and a broad national dialogue that includes all Congolese voices not just elites or foreign allies.”

“Without this, peace remains a fragile illusion,” he said.

Germany has charged a Syrian juvenile with supporting a foreign terrorist organization for helping to plan a foiled attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna last year, the prosecutor general said in a statement on Friday.

Identified as Mohammad A, the suspect helped the would-be attacker by translating Arabic bomb-building instructions and putting him in contact with a member of the Islamic State militia online, according to the charges against him.

Police made multiple arrests over a suspected plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in the Austrian capital’s Ernst Happel Stadium, prompting the cancellation of all three of her shows there in August last year.

“Mohammad A has adhered to the ideology of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) since April 2024 at the latest,” the statement said.

“Between mid-July and August 2024, he was in contact with a young Austrian who was planning a bomb attack on a concert by singer Taylor Swift in Vienna.”

Austria’s coalition government earlier this month agreed on a plan to enable police to monitor suspects’ secure messaging in order to thwart militant attacks, ending what security officials have said is a rare and dangerous blind spot for a European Union country.