From Diodion News, this is your daily briefing for Friday the 23rd of December. Good afternoon. In today's July story, we're going to be running through everything you can expect coming up in 2023. But there's clearly a lot going on in the world right now too, so we'll also be running through three of today's other important stories from around the globe.
And then in our Nebula exclusive section, we have perhaps the most unhinged thing we've ever made. You don't want to miss it. But first, what should we expect from the coming year? Let's start with Europe.
Poland is due to hold a parliamentary election on or before November 11th next year. And these elections are significant for Poland and its place in the European Union. As the ruling, law and justice party has clashed with the EU over a number of issues, particularly the rule of law and democracy. Now, some polls suggest that the opposition's civic coalition, formed by the former Prime Minister and former EU President Donald Tusk with the support of some other smaller opposition parties, could unseat the conservative government.
But it'll be tough to achieve. Spain are also set to hold their general election next year, no later than December 10th. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is hoping to stay in the top job. And recent polling suggests that he'll be able to do this with the support of his current left-wing coalition partner, United We Can.
However, other polls have suggested a possible victory for the conservative opposition people's party, who would need to rely on the support of far-right vox in order to form a government. We may start getting signs of how it's going to go, though, in Spain's local elections set to be held in May, which could be a crucial litmus test of what's to come. Just after that, on June 18th, Turkey is holding its presidential and parliamentary elections, where all eyes will be on President Erdogan, who faces his toughest electoral challenge yet, amid a pretty dire economic situation. With a good candidate and a unified electoral strategy, the opposition could defeat President Erdogan after two decades of his political dominance.
But the recent jailing of a formidable rival, the mayor of Istanbul, suggests that the field may be leveled against them. Moving on from Europe, Africa's largest democracy, Nigeria, will also elect a president, vice president and legislature next year. And the country is set to get a new leader, because their current president is ineligible for another term. As such, all eyes are on populist outsider Peter Obie, whose youth support has helped him to build a lead over traditional party candidates in a series of polls.
Pakistan will also be electing its national assembly no later than the 12th of October, and this election is sure to be dramatic. As the winner of the last vote, Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April of this year, and he's been rallying his supporters in protest marches and calling for an early election ever since. So the atmosphere in the country is only getting more tense, especially as Khan himself survived an assassination attempt in November. Finally, let's take a look at Argentina, which may put a stop to the pink tide of recent left-wing victories in Latin America.
That's because their incumbent president is facing some pretty poor approval ratings, and may not even run for reelection in October 2023. Against a backdrop of economic difficulty, it means that his left-of-center coalition will need to find a heavyweight candidate if they want any chance of winning, and this may prove difficult after the vice president ruled herself out following a corruption conviction. So those are some of the things you can expect to see next year, but there's plenty more happening in places like Greece, Paraguay, Bangladesh, the DRC and more. So let us know in the comments what you'll be closely following in 2023 and which countries you want us to be reporting on.
OK, so that's the biggest story of the day and what you can expect from next year. But this year's not over yet, so let's run through three other stories happening right now. Yesterday, the Scottish Parliament agreed to a controversial new bill, which aims to make formally changing your gender easier. People in Scotland have been able to apply for a gender recognition certificate since 2005, but this was only available to those over the age of 18, and for those who had a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The new bill introduced by the SMP reduces the age requirement to 16 and drops the requirement for a medical diagnosis. In the bill, it specifies that in order to change your gender, the individual will need to have lived in their required gender for three months, or six months if the individual is aged between 16 and 18, before the change can be made. Additionally, anyone who applies for a certificate will have a three-month change of mind period. The bill also makes it a criminal offence to falsely apply for a GRC, and if convicted, it can lead to a two-year prison sentence.
The UK government has already signaled its disapproval of the bill, and has suggested that they may prevent royal assent from being granted. Now, there's more on the way, but be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to make the daily briefing part of your daily routine, or just search for us in your podcast app of choice to listen along. What we found out that the US House of Representatives will be recommending criminal charges against former President Donald Trump a few days ago, we were yet to see the report that led to this conclusion. Yesterday, though, that changed with the publication of the 814-page report, and there's been some pretty groundbreaking assertions.
The central claim of the report is that what happened on January 6th all comes down to one man, Donald Trump. The report claims in the two months between the election and insurrection, President Trump or his inner circle, engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private, outreach pressure or condemnation, targeting either state legislatures or state local administrators to overturn state election results. In essence, this fostered a feeling of mistrust towards the government, something the report claims he did little to stop. And this manifested in the violent storming of the US Capitol.
Next up, it's been reported today that an employee of the German Foreign Intelligence Agency, the BND, has been arrested on suspicion of treason, after it was revealed that they were leaking sensitive information to Russia. And this is the first time that someone's been arrested on these grounds since 2014. In a statement, the president of the BND said that restraint and discretion are important in this particular case. With Russia, we're dealing with an actor on the opposite side who's unscrupulous-ness and willingness to use violence we must reckon with.
Every detail of this operation that becomes public means an advantage for this adversary and its intention to harm Germany. Unfortunately, because of this, little is known about the nature of the allegation. And in fact, there's really not very much public information about the case at all right now. But we'll continue to update you as it plays out in 2023.
In a final uplifting story of today, we're going to discuss jet fuel. That's because the UK Department of Transport has announced a new project to use waste from steelworks and household rubbish to create fuel for planes. This should see about 300,000 tonnes of sustainable fuel produced each year, which will cut CO2 emissions by about 200,000 tonnes. In total, the government has suggested that this is enough to fly to the moon and back about 60 times.
So that's a lot of fuel that won't be used. That's all we have done for our YouTube today. But if you want to see the most unhinged video we've ever made, where I interview myself about TODR in 2022, so I'm very fortunate to be joined today by Jack Kelly. That's TODR CEO.
Hey. And Jack Kelly, TODR's head of content. How are you both doing? Great.
And tell you something she expects in 2023, including where we're going to deliver the 10,000th TODR order. Right. Are you ready? We'll just take a traumatic moment.
Okay. Silence. Let's take some silence for a moment. Let's take a moment.
Here we go. Your 10,000th order. Then you should check out the extended ad free edition of the daily briefing over on Nebula. And if you've been considering signing up, now is the last time we're going to warn you about the sale currently on before it ends.
So this is your time to do it. I'll let Ben explain from here. There's an offer which gets you a year of membership for less than $1 a month. That's huge because Nebula subscribers not only get everything you've already watched ad free, but also an extended edition of the show every single day, available to watch on Nebula or stream on your podcast app of choice.
They also get access to a ton of other exclusive ad free TLDR content, as well as videos from all your favorite creators. The good news is, like I mentioned, our friends at CuriosityStream, the streaming service which offers you some of the world's best documentaries, is offering an incredible deal whereby you can get both platforms, CuriosityStream and Nebula, for less than $12 a year. That's all the documentaries you could want on CuriosityStream and then more TLDR content on Nebula, including the extended briefing, other full exclusive TLDR videos, and it's always ad free. Click the link below to get both services for less than $1 a month, a deal which doesn't last long, and support the channel.