COMMUNISTS laid flowers at the International Brigades memorial statue in Belfast following a May Day solidarity meeting at the weekend.

Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) incoming chair John Pinkerton called, in the year of Karl Marx’s 200th birthday, for an “all-Ireland anti-imperialist alliance” to develop “a new type of national political and economic sovereignty” and build “a future in which the needs of the people, the planet and peace come before greed for profits.”

Tudeh Party of Iran international secretary Navid Shomali warned that a “powerful coalition” of forces was gathering around US President Donald Trump with “very dangerous designs for Iran, within the scope of ‘regime change.’ Its agenda is to exert crippling pressures on the Iranian people.”