Köhler’s new crew

HORST KÖHLER, head of the International Monetary Fund, is in an irrepressible mood. Barely a month after talk of a management crisis at the Fund—several top staffers, including his formidable deputy, Stanley Fischer, had said they were leaving—Mr Köhler has scotched the rumours by appointing a slate of top-flight replacements. And barely a year after taking over, Mr Köhler, who was nobody's first choice, is putting into place a broad, if not radical, overhaul of his institution. Emerging-market crises are not distracting attention from his reforms. And George Bush's Treasury team, whose initial rhetoric was about ending “bail-outs” for countries in trouble, has since taken a remarkably relaxed attitude, most notably over loans to Turkey. As a result, Mr Köhler may end up reshaping the world's most important international financial institution pretty much on his own.