All Blog Posts from World Watch

Written by CBS News' Sarah Carter in Johannesburg

I drive past her everyday as I drop my children at school. She stands there cold with her very young baby held on her back with a blanket.

I usually give her whatever coins I have in my change dispenser. But generally we are late, in a hurry, and rush right past her, stopping just long enough to pass her the coins.

Today was different. In the spirit of the first-ever Mandela Day, I stopped.

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The United Nations' three-day Head-of-State Summit on the global financial crisis had promise. The goal was to convene a summit of world leaders at U.N. Headquarters in New York to assess the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression. Over 100 million people per year, the summiteers noted, will fall into extreme poverty.

On the first day, the message was clear: developing countries are the victims of the financial crisis and they need money. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "surely, if the world can mobilize more than $18 trillion to keep the financial sector afloat, it can find more than $18 billion to keep commitments in Africa."

Security ahead of the "United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development" was tight. New York City Police blocked the perimeter of the U.N., and plans were readied for the red carpet treatment of presidents arriving at the General Assembly.

The problem was, almost no one showed up. Of the 140 nations participating, only a dozen presidents and prime ministers are attending, and it was postponed from early June because the "outcome document" – a set of proposals for the reform of the world financial system – had no consensus.

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Award-winning CBS News photographer Adil Bradlow spent last week talking to people along South Africa's northern border, where thousands of refugees are pouring in to escape disease and abject poverty in Zimbabwe.

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CBS News photographer Adil Bradlow reports from South Africa's cholera-plagued border with Zimbabwe. He says the health crisis has brought an unexpected side-effect: opportunistic illegal immigrants seeking asylum amid the bedlam.

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CBS News photographer Adil Bradlow reports from South Africa's cholera-plagued border with Zimbabwe. He says the health crisis has brought an unexpected side-effect: opportunistic illegal immigrants seeking asylum amid the bedlam.

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A diplomat in Harare says a cholera outbreak sweeping Zimbabwe has killed close to 3,000 people. Residents talk about the total collapse of their country, as President Robert Mugabe blames "the West". CBS' Sarah Carter reports from Johannesburg.

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