At stake are more than banks

From op-ed by Nicholas D. Kristof in The New York Times :

As world leaders gather in London for the Group of 20 summit meeting, the most wrenching statistic is this: According to World Bank estimates, the global economic crisis will cause an additional 22 children to die per hour, throughout all of 2009.

And that's the best-case scenario. The World Bank says it's possible the toll will be twice that: an additional 400,000 child deaths, or an extra child dying every 79 seconds.

“In London, Washington and Paris, people talk of bonuses or no bonuses,” Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, said this week. “In parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food.”

~ more... ~