This drama with Greece might finally be over, for now

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NEED TO KNOW:

For five months European leaders have been negotiating with Greek leaders over Greece's need for a new bailout. And for five months the news media have been reporting on every incremental development. Well, an end — and not the dystopian one we all predicted — might have finally come this morning.

Overnight talks, which might be described as strained or perhaps frantic, or both, appear to have been successful. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who came to power promising to stand up to the demands for austerity from European leaders, agreed to a series of austerity reforms.

In exchange for up to almost $100 billion in bailout money — which would bring the total bailout money Greece has received since 2010 to more than $350 billion — Tsipras will have to rush through his own parliament tax hikes, pension cuts, and the creation of a debt repayment fund. It's going to be awkward since many of his own party object to such harsh reforms.

And the Greek people? Well, they aren't going to be happy either. They are going to have to pay higher taxes and lose some of their hard-earned pensions because they were led for so long by an ineffectual and corrupt government. It hardly seems fair. One Athens resident described the deal as "misery, humiliation and slavery."

But Tsipras hardly had much of a choice. Such austerity was what the creditors — who had already loaned the country hundreds of billions — demanded. And without more money, Greece's economy would have sputtered and by some predictions the country would have collapsed and ended up as some kind of failed state.

So the fact that a deal has been reached comes as a relief to much of the world. For the Greek people, however, relief is a long way off.

WANT TO KNOW:

For awhile now all of our attention in Syria has been in the north. Aleppo is in the north. Idlib province is in the north. These are places where government forces and rebel fighters and terrorist groups have been trading territory for years.

It's the northern border of Turkey where a lot of the fighters and weapons are coming through. It's in the north that a lot of the kidnappings of western reporters have taken place. It's in the north that the Islamic State has taken hold so forcefully. And it was northern Syria that for awhile was the most easily accessed by journalists.

But it's in the south that it all began. And it is in the south that a coalition of rebel groups have been quietly and successfully fighting forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They are known as the Southern Front, and they appear to be Syria's best hope. At least, its leaders say all the right things.

The Southern Front is a coalition of dozens of rebels groups, writes GlobalPost Senior Correspondent and Editor Richard Hall. And its leaders say they espouse a moderate ideology and are fighting for democracy. They have banned participation from fundamentalist religious groups like Jabhat al-Nusra or the Islamic State or Al Qaeda. As a result, they are the recipients of American support.

An operation by the Southern Front is now underway to capture the provincial capital of Daraa. If it succeeds, it would be a hugely symbolic and important victory. Daraa is where the revolution, which then turned into a civil war, started. And if the Southern Front can hold on to Daraa and reasonably assert control over it, it would be a very good development. And any good development in Syria these days, no matter how small, is truly significant.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

An Amazonian weevil is a gigantic white larvae, the size of a thumb. They live inside palm trees and devour their hosts to death. Then they turn into much smaller beetles and head off. But even more importantly, for humans at least, they are delicious.

Well, at least the locals (and GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Simeon Tegel) think so. “Locals love to eat them any way they can: fried, grilled and even live and wiggling,” Tegel writes. “Fried in its own fat, with diced onion, chili peppers, and a touch of a salt, it’s surprising how good a weevil can taste.”

Here is a video that goes into more detail about this South American luxury. It's pretty convincing.