Fear on streets of Reykjavik as country can only go to IMF for financial bailout

By David Prosser, Deputy Business Editor Iceland may be the target of British opprobrium right now, but on the streets of Reykjavik, citizens are more concerned about their own increasingly dire situation. The collapse of the country's banking system and, along with it, the economy, is steadily affecting ever more of the 320,000 people who live on the North Atlantic island. Yesterday, one of the country's few daily national newspapers announced it was shutting its doors, while the country's flag-carrying airline, Icelandair, said it had seen a dramatic slump in demand. No wonder the governor of the country's central bank has been sent home to rest by his doctors. Such is the parlous state of its finances, economists now believe Iceland will have no choice but to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund and ask the... [read full story]