Greece might accept bailout terms after all

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NEED TO KNOW:

After a lot of stress and anxiety, Greece looks like it might actually accept the terms of a new bailout. This would stave off financial disaster and a potential exit from the European Union a little bit longer. If Greece's creditors accept the deal — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is still asking for some small concessions — the world will be able to breathe a big old sigh of relief.

Greece missed its deadline to pay the International Monetary Fund (IMF) $1.7 billion last night, sparking global concern that the country was sliding into default.

The missed payment is a drop in the bucket compared to what Greece actually owes the IMF in total. And it's nothing compared to the hundreds of billions it owes overall. But the fact that Greece wasn't able to make this relatively small payment means to all the other lenders — primarily various euro zone governments and the European Central Bank — that it was probably not going to make their payments either.

So unless everyone could agree on bailout terms, Greece would be pretty much cut off. Tsipras had called for a referendum on Sunday to let the Greek people decide if it should accept the bailout terms. The people were likely to say no. And so with no one willing to lend it more money, it would have had none left. And that could cause a whole lot of economic instability around Europe and the world. And economic instability means political instability.

The whole thing has made the United States, which has tried to get Greece's creditors to relax a little, very nervous. The administration of US President Barack Obama has spent its entire tenure fighting its way out of the 2008 financial collapse. It's been pretty successful. And the last thing it wants is to revisit those dark days. It is also concerned about political instability in a country that is a short boat ride away from Libya, where the Islamic State and other militants are gaining ground.

So everyone's hopeful the bailout will come through ahead of the referendum. But even if the bailout does come through, the money will only help Greece pay back its last bailout, which was given so it could pay off the loans it had taken out before that. Barely any of this money is going back into the Greek economy. So it remains unclear, beyond harsh austerity measures that punish regular people, how Greece will ever emerge from this circle of debt.

WANT TO KNOW:

Usually the best business strategy is to just stay out of it. But two major corporations in Peru — one of Latin America's most conservative societies — did what few corporations are willing to do, take a risk to support a cause that might alienate some customers.

On Friday, in reaction to the Supreme Court ruling in the United States legalizing gay marriage, Inca Cola, which is essentially Peru's national drink, and Banco de Credito de Peru, the country's largest private bank, quickly changed their brand colors on social media to the rainbow flag of LGBT rights.

While millions were doing this worldwide, including some corporations in the United States, it was particularly surprising to see it happening in Peru. Division on the issue of gay marriage runs deep in Peru. The country's congress indefinitely shelved its own civil union law in April.

A negative backlash to the move by the two giant businesses was swift. A campaign to cut up Banco de Credito bank cards began. But the backlash only prompted its own backlash, writes GlobalPost senior correspondent Simeon Tegel. And now there is a vibrant public discourse. So that's a good thing.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Sugary drinks killed more than 180,000 people around the world last year. That's according to a new study, which researchers say is the first detailed global report on the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages.

In Mexico alone, the report found that such drinks probably killed about 24,000 people through diabetes, cancer and heart disease. While Mexico is famous for being one of the most dangerous places in the world, the biggest threat in Mexico is apparently soda. Mexicans drinks more Coca-Cola products than anywhere else on Earth. It's not uncommon to see Mexicans drinking Coke at breakfast.

"This is not complicated," said one of the authors of the report in a statement. “There are no health benefits from sugar-sweetened beverages, and the potential impact of reducing consumption is saving tens of thousands of deaths each year.”