At Stake Are More Than Banks

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
NYT

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.”

That’s what makes the G-20 summit — and Europe’s penchant for sniping at the United States instead of doing more to resolve the mess — so frustrating. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is obstinately resisting a coordinated global stimulus package, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France threatened to walk out if he didn’t get his way and the Czech leader threw a tantrum.

(More here.)