Reuters World News - Syria, Japan, Coke sugar and equal pay in women’s sports

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Residents say no gunfire heard Sunday morning in Syria's Sweida. Japan's exit polls show a defeat for the ruling party coalition in the upper parliament. The fight for equal pay in U.S. women's basketball is on court, while in the UK a female footballer reaches a milestone. Plus, Trump's push for Coke to use cane sugar. Recommended read: Sleepless in Kyiv: how Ukraine's capital copes with Russia's nighttime attacks Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, exit polls show Japan's government is likely to lose its majority. Residents in the Syrian city of Swayda nervously wait to see if a ceasefire will hold. Congo's M23 rebels and the government say they will sign a peace deal, and the fight for equal pay in elite women's sports on both sides of the pond. It's Sunday, July 20th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front of lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago.

Residents of the Syrian city of Swayda say the situation on the streets has returned to relative calm. No gunfire could be heard in the city Sunday morning after the Islamic-led government said Bedouin fighters had withdrawn from the predominantly Drew's community. President Ahmed al-Shara announcing a new ceasefire early on Saturday, which collapsed back into conflict shortly after. With hundreds of people killed, the bloodshed in Sweda has been a major test for Al-Shara. A U.S. envoy says the country is at a critical juncture.

Japan's ruling political coalition is likely to lose its majority in the Upper House of Parliament. That's according to an initial exit poll. The loss does not necessarily mean Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government falls, But it does add to political instability as high inflation and a looming tariff deadline with the U.S. put pressure on the leader. We'll have more on the ramifications of this election in Monday's podcast after the results are final.

There are signs of hope in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. The M23 rebels and the government have promised to sign a peace agreement by August 18th. from both sides signed a declaration of principles at a ceremony in Qatar on Saturday. President Donald Trump has exerted pressure for a durable peace in Congo, a country he hopes the West can invest in for its significant mineral supply. At the Women's National Basketball Association's All-Star Game last night, players brought a different contest to the court during warm-ups with shirts reading, pay us what you owe us. And after the final buzzer, fans chanted pay them in support of players over intensifying

labor talks with the league. And while in the U.S., female basketball players are pushing for better pay, on the other side of the pond, women's football, or soccer, has achieved a new record. 20-year-old Canadian forward Olivia Smith has shattered the women's transfer record, with a one million pound move from Liverpool to Arsenal Football Club. Philip O'Connor is in Switzerland at the Women's Euro Soccer Championship. Until maybe a few years ago, transfer fees weren't actually very common in the women's game. Instead, female players had shorter contracts, and then they moved between clubs without transfer fees being paid.

Now, that has sort of increased in recent years. I think Chelsea were reputed to have paid 300,000 pounds at the time to get Pernilla Harder, the Danish international striker. So to see that go in the space of maybe four or five or six years from 300,000, to one million pounds for Olivia Smith. That's a big change in the game. Half a million Haitians who've received temporary protected status are now facing the end of a legal pathway to living in the United States. Our national affairs reporter Nathan Lane recently visited the migrant community in Springfield, Ohio.

You might recall, this was the town made famous during the last presidential campaign because of Trump's false claims that Haitians were eating. the town's pets? We met several Haitian migrants, most of them, living and working under this temporary protected status that was at least going to go into next year. But the Department of Homeland Security said we're going to cut TPS short and the end date is effective September 2nd. They're saying that conditions in Haiti have improved and it's safe for people to return.

They, of course, did not provide any evidence of that. And most Haitians, if you talk to them, they'll point out. very quickly that look the State Department has its own advisory to American citizens telling them not to travel to Haiti because it's dangerous. One of the things that came across in my conversations with the Haitian migrants is they feel like they're hardworking members of the community, they're contributing to the economy, they're working at Amazon warehouses, they're working for auto suppliers, and they're they now don't know what to do. Now, most of them have asylum claims, and they're really hoping that they'll get their day in court,

and they're just sort of wondering, why is it a problem that I'm here? Why am I being targeted? I'm contributing to society. If you've ever cracked open a Coca-Cola, bottled in Mexico, you know it tastes a little different than the ones produced here in the U.S. And now President Trump says the company will be making a shift to cane sugar instead of corn syrup for its American soft drink offerings. A change Coca-Cola has not yet confirmed.

Our reporter, Marcelo Tagera, covers the sugar industry out of New York. It seems like a simple thing to do, but it's not, not at all. It involves a lot of process, actually. You're going to have to find who's going to sell it to you. And the machinery, the equipment, and everything they have, they have been designed to work with corn syrup. And then on top of all that, sugar is more expensive. That's why a lot of people in the U.S. use corn syrup.

And the U.S. would not be able, mostly would not be able to produce that additional cane sugar that the industry would need. The biggest producer is Brazil, and so it would, it's the obvious option for imports. But now we have the Trump administration threatening. to implement this 50% tariff on everything that comes from Brazil. So how could this impact farmers who largely supported Donald Trump in the last presidential campaign? If Coke starts to do that, Coca-Cola starts to do that, and other beverage companies go after that.

And also candy makers and food industries, it could be negative for farmers in general. It will impact the prices that farmers get on the market because it means the smaller demand for the product. Now to Argentina, where a dozen boxes of Nazi documents have resurfaced in the basement of their Supreme Court. The boxes contain photos of Adolf Hitler, as well as thousands of Nazi labor organization membership booklets stamped with swastikas.

Our reporter Lel Miller has been digging into the story about how the documents are reviving questions about an uncomfortable subject for Argentina. The Supreme Court originally said that these documents arrived to Argentina on a Japanese ship as part of a shipment of 83 boxes that had been sent by the German embassy in Tokyo to Argentina. And that has been questioned by historians. They say that it's much more likely that these documents actually came from a raid. So what do we know about what's inside?

We really don't know yet whether the information in the membership booklets is going to give us any new understanding of Nazi activities in Argentina during the war. What's interesting is that it shows us how sensitive the issue of Nazis still is in Argentina today. There's debate about the extent to which the government of President Berdon allowed Nazi war criminals to come into the country. And we see the sensitivity because the Supreme Court has been so careful about releasing information on this. And for today's recommended read, a look at how Ukrainians in the capital city of Kiev are coping with intensifying nighttime attacks from Russia. There will be a link in the show notes. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.