WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – A group of activists from Afro-American organizations held the 12th annual Black People’s March in front of the White House in Washington, DC, Saturday. Members of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace, and Reparations were behind the march as the event was part of the 13th annual convention of their movement. “The only thing that has ever been supportive of African people, Black people in this country was the liberation struggle,” said Lisa Davis, Black is Back Coalition co-chair. “Colonialism is a colonialist, oppressive, racist structure superimposed over us. We were stolen, our people were stolen, brought to this land. The indigenous people where they enacted genocide on them, and then a system of way of thinking were superimposed over on us. And out of that we have a brutal policing system, which is basically the police acting as an occupying force in our community,” she added. At the rally, the passing of Glenn Ford, journalist, activist and the founder of the Black is Back Coalition was also announced.

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BERLIN (Daily Mail) – Shocking footage emerged of German police spraying tear gas in the faces of protesters after they staged a rally against COVID passports. Disorder broke out after 1,000 people began marching in the Eastern city of Leipzig, Saxony, Saturday, with 24 arrests understood to have been made, The Daily Mail reported. From Monday, Saxony will be the first federal state in the country to implement the ‘2G’ rule, which has angered campaigners against new restrictions. In Germany, the 2G rule means people must be fully vaccinated against COVID or be able to prove they have recovered from it, in order to visit pubs, restaurants and other indoor events. Over 3,000 protesters against the new rule had originally pledged to take part in the rally in the city - the largest in Saxony - before authorities set a cap on 1,000 people. But by morning, this number had already been reached and police struggled to control the crowds in the city centre. A video shows the protest - which had been peaceful up to a point - become gradually more tense with angry shouts from the crowd. All of a sudden, the scene in Grimmaische Straße descends into chaos - with several pushes and shoves before police and protesters begin jostling against each other.

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WASHINGTON (LA Times) – As the delta variant became the dominant strain of coronavirus across the United States, all three COVID-19 vaccines available to Americans lost some of their protective power, according to a new study. Researchers who scoured the records of nearly 800,000 U.S. veterans found that in early March, just as the delta variant was gaining a toehold across American communities, the three vaccines were roughly equal in their ability to prevent infections. But over the next six months, that changed dramatically. By the end of September, Moderna’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, measured as 89% effective in March, was only 58% effective. The effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine, which also employs two doses, fell from 87% to 45% in the same period. And most strikingly, the protective power of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine plunged from 86% to just 13% over those six months.

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ALGIERS (Dispatches) – Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune says he has no intention of making the “first move” to ease tensions with former colonial power France following a row over incendiary comments by his French counterpart. The ties between Algiers and Paris turned sour after a visa row and media reports last month that said French President Emmanuel Macron had accused the ruling elite in Algeria of “feeding a grudge against France” and questioned the existence of an Algerian nation before French colonialism entered the country in 1830. “Macron completely pointlessly revived an old conflict,” Tebboune told German magazine Der Spiegel. “I won’t be the one to make the first move to ease tensions. No Algerian will accept it if I get in touch with those who insulted us.” According to French daily Le Monde, during a meeting with French-Algerians in early October, Macron had said Algeria was ruled by a “political-military system” and had described the country’s “official history” as having been “totally re-written” to something “not based on truths” but “on a discourse of hatred toward France.”

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CAIRO (AP) – Libya’s government Sunday rejected a decision by the country’s presidential council to suspend the foreign minister over allegations of monopolizing foreign policy. The standoff between the two bodies is likely to increase political tensions in the North African county less than seven weeks before planned elections. It also comes a few days ahead of an international conference in Paris to push for holding the vote as scheduled Dec. 24. The Government of National Unity said in a statement that the presidential council doesn’t have the right to suspend Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush and hailed the minister’s efforts as the county’s chief diplomat. It pointed to her work at an international conference held in the capital of Tripoli last month with the aim of resolving the country’s thorniest issues ahead of general elections. The government said that naming members of the government and suspending or investigating government officials are duties exclusive to the prime minister.

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LONDON (Dispatches) – Former British Prime Minister John Major says the actions of fellow Conservative Boris Johnson have trashed Parliament’s reputation at home and abroad, calling them “politically corrupt.” Major’s remarks came after Johnson’s government made an embarrassing U-turn on Thursday on plans to overhaul the system for combating parliamentary corruption, with the lawmaker whose case had provoked the row quitting his job. The government had tried to block the suspension of Owen Paterson, who had broken lobbying rules, but then reversed its decision and later apologized. “I think the way the government handled that was shameful, wrong and unworthy of this, or indeed any government,” Major, Britain’s prime minister between 1990-1997, said in a BBC interview. “There’s a general whiff of ‘we are the masters now’ about their behavior,” he said. “They also behaved badly in other ways that are perhaps politically corrupt.” Major, who campaigned to keep the UK in the European Union and who criticized Johnson over this handling of Brexit, said his government had “done a number of things that have concerned me deeply.” “They have broken the law, the prorogation of Parliament. They have broken treaties, I have in mind the Northern Ireland Protocol. They have broken their word on many occasions.”