‘No space for Bezos': Protesters rally against tech tycoon and fiancé Lauren Sanchez's Venice wedding
Protesters say tech tycoon Jeff Bezos and his fiancé are not welcome in Venice, as the couple prepare for three-day celebrations on the billionaire's super yacht.
The Amazon owner and former TV journalist have a star-studded test list for their wedding in the Italian city, but it appears many local residents are not happy.
Protest group No Space for Bezos have hung a huge banner at the Bell Tower of san George, letting the couple know they are not welcome.
A protest group spokesman said: 'Let's organize his party together and make him understand that he won't find us trying to pick up the crumbs that fall from the table of some billionaire.'
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Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Venice protests target Bezos over mounting grievances
ROME, June 28 (Reuters) - Mass tourism, impossibly high rents, worker exploitation, inequality and elitism: Venice, Italy's protests in recent days against Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's high-profile wedding have highlighted growing global grievances. Local politicians dismissed protesters as a fringe minority. Bezos's fame and Venice's stunning visual backdrop have offered them international visibility which they effectively exploited. "No Space for Bezos" banners draped over the iconic Rialto Bridge and a huge canvas laid out on St Mark's Square urging the tech billionaire to pay more taxes have been seen all over the world. Concerns of greater disruptions forced Bezos and his bride to move their final and biggest celebrity party from the central district to a more isolated venue in the eastern part of the lagoon city. "The idea that the city should be seen as a set, a stage, or an amusement park has been highlighted like never before by Bezos' wedding," Tommaso Cacciari, a frontman for the No Space for Bezos movement, told Reuters. In the final protest on Saturday, around 1,000 residents and activists rallied in front of Venice's train station under a scorching sun, before marching roughly 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) to the Rialto Bridge. They carried banners including one proclaiming 'Kisses yes, Bezos no', playing on Venice's reputation as the city of love, and another one saying 'No space for Bezos' with a rocket, in a reference to his Blue Origin space technology company. Venetian businesses and politicians, however, welcomed the event, hailing its major boost for the local economy. Luca Zaia, the regional governor of Veneto around Venice, said the city should be proud of hosting the wedding. Alice Bazzoli, a 24-year-old university student, called Bezos a "hypocrite" for donating 3 million euros ($3.5 million) to Venice while flooding its fragile ecosystem with high-polluting private jets and yachts. Bezos and Sanchez have given 1 million euros each to three Venetian institutions: CORILA, an academic consortium that studies the lagoon, UNESCO's local office, and Venice International University. "I'd love Venice to be tailored for citizens, not for tourists, with affordable housing," Bazzoli told Reuters, complaining that students were being priced out of the market, with the best accommodations offered to visitors. Andrea Segre, a 49-year-old Italian film director born in Venice, said the city was also pushing out ordinary residents. "People aged 25 to 35 — the age group that starts families — cannot afford to live in Venice. The consequence is a lack of diversity and social liveliness," he said. Venice is rapidly depopulating, largely because of the cost of living crisis. Its historic city centre now has fewer than 50,000 residents, compared to more than 100,000 some 50 years ago. The city has hosted scores of other VIP weddings, including that of actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014, but the latest luxury nuptials have attracted far greater resentment because of Bezos' corporate and political role. The Amazon founder is the world's fourth richest man, and has developed ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, whose daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner were in attendance at the wedding. "Bezos is the embodiment of the most absolute wealth gained through the exploitation of everything around you," 28-year-old student Giulia Cacopardo told Reuters in the run-up to Saturday's march. In Italy, the e-commerce giant has faced criticism and strikes from trade unions over labour practices, and scrutiny over tax compliance. Reuters reported in February that Italian prosecutors were investigating alleged tax evasion worth 1.2 billion. "I would have protested against Bezos even if he had come on a rowboat with just a handful of people ... because he contributed practically, materially and politically to Donald Trump's re-election," protest leader Cacciari said. ($1 = 0.8533 euros)
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Thousands protest Bulgaria's euro adoption and call for a referendum
Days before Bulgaria was expected to become the 21st member of the eurozone, opponents of the move geared up Saturday for a final battle to change the schedule. Thousands of protesters gathered on a central square in downtown Sofia to protest government plans to adopt the euro and to demand a referendum on the new currency. The European Union has given the green light for Bulgaria to adopt the euro starting Jan. 1. The protesters, led by civic groups, nationalist and pro-Russian parties known for their opposition to the euro, declared that after the rally they intended to set up a tent camp on the central square, dubbed 'Town of the lev,' after the name of the national currency. On a platform for speakers hung a huge banner that read 'The battle for the Bulgarian lev is the last battle for Bulgaria.' The leader of the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party Kostadin Kostadinov told the protesters that the country will be stripped of its currency. 'Someone else will decide how we spend our money, the Bulgarian budget will be approved by the European Central Bank," he said. 'This is an anti-state coup, this is treason.' Kostadinov announced that lawmakers from Germany, Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have joined the event to support the protest. Ahead of the demonstration, Vazrazhdane submitted in Parliament a motion for a vote of no confidence in the current government, accusing it of failing to undertake necessary reforms to restore stability to public finances and working for the forceful adoption of the euro. Parliament will vote on the motion next week, but the pro-EU government coalition is expected to survive. The Balkan country joined the European Union in 2007 and is now on the final stretch of its accession to the eurozone. The last institutional hurdle is the approval from both the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council in Brussels, scheduled for July 8. These steps come after the European Council gave its clear endorsement of Bulgaria joining the eurozone on Jan. 1, 2026. During its almost two decades-long EU membership, Bulgaria has been plagued by political instability and corruption that have fueled euroscepticism among its 6.4 million citizens. Now, scores of false claims by opponents of the eurozone have been published on social networks feeding fears of economic changes that they say could bring more poverty. Economists say joining the euro will not bring massive change to Bulgaria's economy in the short run. That's because the government has pegged the currency to the euro by law, at a fixed rate of 1 lev for every 51 eurocents.
Times
4 hours ago
- Times
Irish bookie BoyleSports takes £100m punt on UK high streets
Ireland's biggest independent bookmaker has placed a £100 million bet on Britain's struggling high streets, with plans to open hundreds of new shops. The family-owned BoyleSports, a staple on high streets in Ireland, wants to open 200 new shops and create 1,000 jobs in what its bosses say is the UK's under-appreciated market. The move comes as BoyleSports is expected to be controversially unveiled as the new front-of-shirt sponsor at the Premier League football club West Ham United. BoyleSports, which operates 390 shops across Ireland and the UK, was founded by John Boyle in 1982, who remains on the company's board as chairman. Some 70 outlets are in the UK at present. The UK expansion will be funded by its shareholders, Vlad Kaltenieks, the company's chief executive, said. The move may be viewed as counterintuitive given the retreat from the high street by the likes of William Hill, Coral and Ladbrokes in recent years as they concentrate on online gambling operations. The number of betting shops has fallen every year for the past ten years, according to the Gambling Commission, although numbers dropped by only 1.4 per cent last year. The pandemic had a profound impact: some 1,808 shops have closed since Covid-19 hit, the equivalent of one in five of the number of shops pre-lockdown. UK bookmakers have instead turned their attention to US online markets, where sports betting is being legalised on a state-by-state basis. With America expected to be the world's biggest regulated market, UK betting companies have used their online expertise to partner with American firms. Kaltenieks said that this had resulted in UK betting shops becoming an under-appreciated market. Like other firms operating in the UK, BoyleSports was fined £2.8 million by the Gambling Commission in 2020 for failing to comply with money-laundering risk assessments. Kaltenieks said that it complies with all legal requirements, and that compliance was one of the firm's priorities. It is precisely because the UK is heavily regulated that makes the new investment attractive, he added. 'The UK is one of the most exciting, well-regulated and competitive betting landscapes in the world, and we believe we offer something genuinely different to customers,' he said. 'As a family-owned, independent business, we've built a loyal customer base in Ireland by focusing on trust, service and a seamless experience and now we're rolling that approach out even more widely across the UK.' There has been speculation over a potential tie-up with West Ham United over the past few weeks. The company declined to comment on such a deal, though it is understood that the club could unveil the new sponsorship deal as early as this week. Premier League teams have agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts by the end of the upcoming 2025-26 season following a campaign by gambling industry critics.
