IMF/EU Men in Black have a face

At least the International Monetary men do: today’s Irish Times features a front-page shot of the IMF experts tasked withoverseeing the budget austerity plans as they stride over to the Irish Central Bank HQ in Dublin, with a beggar holding out a coffee cup. “IMF/EU staff begin formal talks with Government,”reports the paper adding that the discussions will include “more than 20 officials from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission”. The daily also runs a selection of readers’ reactions to yesterday’seditorial, which asked “whether this is what the men of 1916 died for: a bailout from the German chancellor with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor on the side.”