Today we'll be discussing some of the biggest stories, including Kathmandu electing a rapper as mayor and British soldiers being arrested on drug offences, but first a vote on North Korean sanctions.

China and Russia have vetoed an us-led effort in the United Nations Security Council to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea. It marks the first-ever public split in the council since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006. The US-drafted resolution would have banned tobacco and oil exports to North Korea and blacklisted the Lazarus hacking group, which allegedly has ties to the state. The failed resolution follows the latest missile tests by North Korea, including a test of what is thought to be the country's largest intercontinental ballistic missile. Between 2006 and 2017 the security council has gradually and unanimously increased sanctions on North Korea, so china and Russia's veto marks a big change. Russia's ambassador said new sanctions are a path to a dead-end, whilst china said it would just lead to more negative effects and an escalation of confrontation.

In a vote late on Thursday, the Polish parliament approved legislation put forward by their president that would roll back on controversial judicial reform. Reforms that the EU believe breached the principle of the rule of law, specifically the proposed legislation, would dismantle the disciplinary chamber. As well as reform the disciplinary regime for judges and formerly reinstate judges that were dismissed under the existing regime. The legislation marks a significant step in Poland's bid to unlock its share of the EU's recovery fund. The issue is that the law now faces a major hurdle, the Polish senate. Currently, opposition parties control the senate and all opposition parties voted against the law in parliament. Critics also say the move is just face-saving, pointing to the fact that the disciplinary chamber dismantling is in reality just a name change.

Yesterday saw tens of thousands of passengers across Europe face turmoil as EasyJet was forced to ground part of its fleet due to an IT glitch. At around 1 pm UK time, the UK's largest airline by passenger numbers was forced to cancel upwards of 200 flights to and from UK airports before rectifying the issue by the mid-afternoon. Although the issue was quickly fixed, disruption continued for hours as planes and crews were stuck in the wrong places. This latest glitch comes after a myriad of other problems hit the aviation sector in recent weeks and months. Both EasyJet and British Airways have been forced to cancel hundreds of flights due to staff sickness, with British Airways suffering catastrophic IT glitches on a recurring basis. The exact cause of EasyJet's glitch is unknown.

Two weeks ago the people of Nepal went to the polls and voted in this year's local elections and one result confirmed in the last couple of days is quite an upset, especially considering the traditional dominance of the two main parties. The country's capital city Kathmandu rejected both main parties and elected a rapper and civil engineer as its new mayor. As a big name in Nepal's music scene, 32-year-old Balendra Shah harnessed young voters' frustration with established elderly leaders and utilized the internet in his campaign and won just under 40 percent of the vote. The two other major candidates from the Nepali congress party and the communist party received about 24 each. As a trained engineer in addition to his hip-hop career, Shah planned to upgrade and improve the city's infrastructure for its nearly one and a half million citizens as well as focusing on education, sanitation, culture tourism and more.

Today, it has been revealed that six soldiers who were meant to be involved in the trooping of the colour event at the queen's platinum jubilee have been arrested on suspicion of drug and money laundering offences. The soldiers are part of the first battalion, Irish guards, whose duties include guarding the royal palaces while wearing the iconic bearskin hat and red tunic. According to the sun, the soldiers are being held for organizing a loan shark operation. Part of this included lending money at extortionate rates and laundering money. It has been reported that the police came in like the DEA kicking down doors. The ministry of defence said of the incident, that the army does not tolerate any type of illegal or fraudulent behaviour. As this is now the subject of an independent royal military police investigation, it is inappropriate to comment further.