Spain PM ousted in no-confidence vote

SOCIALIST party leader Pedro Sanchez is set to become the new prime minister of Spain after a noconfidence vote in parliament unseated Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government.

Mr Sanchez, the leader of the largest opposition party, could be sworn in as early as today, with Cabinet appointments taking place next week.

To prevent a power vacuum after a no-confidence motion, Spanish law makes the motion’s author - in this case, Mr Sanchez - the country’s new leader as soon as the king swears him in.

The end of Mr Rajoy’s six-year reign as PM was the first removal of a serving leader by the parliament in Madrid in four decades of democracy. Mr Rajoy shook hands with Mr Sanchez after the result was announced. The reputation of Mr Rajoy’s Popular Party was badly damaged by a court verdict last week which identified it as a beneficiary of a large kickbacks-for-contracts scheme. The 46-year-old, a staunch supporter of the EU and the continent’s shared currency, will be Spain’s seventh prime minister since the country’s return to democracy in the late 1970s. A GIANT panda out for a stroll has surprised residents of a town in the Chinese province of Sichuan. The 11-year-old was raised in captivity and recently released into the wild. After allowing her several hours to explore, she was returned to the Wolong Shenshuping Panda Base.