Koehler grovels

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

With the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change falling to
White House atack yesterday, and the Chair of the International Inspection
Agency on Chemical Weapons about to fall, the IMF Managing Director, Horst
Koehler, knew how to sing for his supper this week.

According to an interview with the IHT published Friday

> Koehler also responded to recent criticism from the Bush administration of
> the Fund's plans to create an international bankruptcy court for sovereign
> debtors that default on their loans. He said there was "a gap in the
> current approach to crisis resolution" and indicated that he was still
> looking at an IMF-based blueprint for a default mechanism for countries.
>
> But he said he was open to listening to input from the United States and
> from banks in the private sector to come up with a compromise, and he
> welcomed recent U.S. criticism of the outline as part of a "constructive
> discussion" to hammer out an international bankruptcy law.
>
> Warning that there was "no kind of quick fix," he stressed that a solution
> should be found in the coming months.