Can she save the world?

IMF chief Christine Lagarde is the new financial iron lady who is determined to ensure the EU and the US take action to resolve the economic crisis, writes Christopher Dickey

FRIDAY the 13th of January dawned grim at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. The news blowing in from across the Atlantic brought the smell of disaster like an approaching hurricane. The credit scores of France and eight other European countries had just been knocked down. Negotiations to bail out an all-but-bankrupt Greece had stalled, or died — it wasn’t clear which.

At a meeting that morning, the fund’s board heard that European countries were not doing the maximum necessary to stave off a financial implosion that could suck the life out of America’s anaemic recovery and bring Western economies again to the brink of recession, or worse.