Socialist sworn in as Spain’s new PM

Pedro Sanchez was yesterday sworn in as Spain’s prime minister, a day after the Socialist leader successfully ousted predecessor Mariano Rajoy, who lost a no-confidence vote in parliament.

Mr Sanchez was sworn-in at the royal Zarzuela Palace by King Felipe VI, taking an oath of loyalty to the King and to Spain’s Constitution. An athiest, the ceremony was without the traditional Bible and Crucifix, a first for a Spanish prime minister since the restoration of democracy.

Mr Sanchez toppled Mr Rajoy following a court ruling in a major corruption case involving the conservative leader’s Popular Party. Parliament voted 180-169 on Friday to replace Mr Rajoy’s government with one led by Mr Sanchez. AP

Police open fire on Kashmir funeral marchers

Government forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir fired shotgun pellets and tear gas yesterday at hundreds of mourners during a funeral march for a man killed after he was run over by a paramilitary vehicle during a protest.

The mourners were marching with the man’s body to a graveyard in Srinagar when police and soldiers used force to stop them. Police said the marchers were defying a government order that bans assembly of more than four people in the city. Residents said youths from the funeral regrouped in the winding streets of the city centre and threw stones at troops. Fierce clashes broke out in several places in the city.

Police later took the custody of the body and allowed only a handful of relatives to take the body for the burial the city’s main martyr’s graveyard where hundreds of rebels and civilians killed since the start of an anti-India armed rebellion are buried. The man was critically injured on Friday and died overnight in a hospital after a paramilitary armoured vehicle crushed at least two men during an anti-India protest. AP

11,000 Puerto Ricans still without power

Hurricane season has officially begun in Puerto Rico, where some 11,000 people remain without power after Hurricane Maria storm hit the island nearly eight months ago. Officials said it could take another two months to fully restore power to Puerto Rico’s 3.3 million residents, extending what is already the longest blackout in US history. Still others warned that the repairs to the power grid completed after the Category 4 storm would not hold through another hurricane.

“The grid is there, but the grid isn’t there. It’s teetering,” said Hector Pesquera, Puerto Rico’s commissioner of public safety. Even if the next storm is a Category 1, he added, the power grid is “in such a state that I think we’re going to lose power”.

The latest report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) said there was a 75 per cent likelihood of five to nine hurricanes occurring in the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which stretches from 1 June to the end of November. There is a 70 per cent chance that as many as four of those could be Category 3, 4, or 5 hurricanes, according to the association.