that they will find medical supplies there and relief there, but all too often they find doctors who are simply overwhelmed, doctor whose don't have the equipment, who don't have resources to adequately care for the children. so many of these kids are dying. it shouldn't happen on any day but it does, it happens every single day. we saw it for ourselves and you're going to see it tonight. aa. cording to the united nations, 600,000 children on the brink of starvation, 600,000. the world food program now has less than three weeks of food aid left. we're going to talk to u-2's singer bono. how you can help, how you can make a difference. 600,000, we're telling their stories tonight. breaking news back home. jeopardizing a lot of futures back home, not mention the global economy. asian markets opening lower after another massive drop on wall street. another 500-plus point drop for the dow. the market plunging, childing midday, losing all steam all afternoon. investors are worried about french banks becoming invol sent, worried about american banks, too and exposure to europe's troubles. bank of america, citi group each down 10%. some calls for some kind of action in washington, president obama to do something. what can he do? what the federal reserve can do? what can congress do? joining me, ali velshi, senior political analyst david gergen. aali, all france? the thing that triggers sell-offs, it's such a -- such a nervous market that a rumor, un substantiated rumor that s&p was going to downgrade france from its aaa rating caused a massive sell-off on france's big bank. the sell-offs make us think of 2008 and times gone by when banks get into trouble and we get a lending freeze. we don't have that situation now. we have a nervous market that again had a very big reaction to something that wasn't even substantiated but right now people don't want to be caught holding the bag, if there are these major sell-offs and in taking their money out to be safe, they're encouraging these sell-offs. i should tell you, gold, another record high, touching $1800 an hours. u.s. ten-year note, how our bonds, mortgages are priced, is down again, it costs the u.s. less money to borrow than it did on monday and less than it did on friday before the downgrade. >> david gergen, as you look at this from a political perspective what do you see? >> anderson, it's not just the rumor in europe. there's a deeper feeling there that the germans, who are paying for bailouts don't have the money nor the will to go the full route. and there's a real sense that this will go the full route. also, anderson, very importantly here and jessica can speak to this, there's a growing sense that there's no one in charge. normally in a crisis there's someone who steps forward, usually the president, who steps forward and you have a sense that someone has their hands on the wheel and knows where we're going and can help guide the ship. there's a sense right now in our politics that no one is in charge. not the president. not ben bernanke. there's no walter cronkite. there's no one here to give us that sense of reassurance. >> jessica, what about that? how does the white house see it? >> reporter: so, anderson, the white house will never comment on the daily gyrations in the stock market. what i am hearing from democrats close to the white house and officials here is this reaction to what david is talking about. this sort of clamor around town here calling on the president to take some bold action. this call by a lot of op-ed writers for the president to do something to prove that he's not weak and powerless at this point. the general pushback you get is this is what op-ed writers do in august. that this is sort of media hysteria in a sense of august doldrums really and that there's too much of a reactive vibe right now in washington and that the stock market isn't the only measure of the economy and the white house has a plan that they have been working on and are focused on and we are going to see the president out in the heartland next week talking about jobs. he's meeting with the fed chairman. he's meeting with the treasury secretary. and he's on his game. and he has to do this hand in glove with congress. that is the message i'm getting and it's the song book they are singing from. >> david, is this just a question of summer doldrums and op-ed writers? >> no, not at all. the media is not driving this wild ride we're on in the stock market that's wiping out people's 401(k)s and hurting a lot of people. i think what americans are looking for now is some seriousness in washington and frankly that's not going to come from some bus tour on a campaign trail from the president. i think a growing number of people think he ought to get off the campaign trail, pull people together and see if he can't get some answer, a bipartisan answer, on jobs. >> ali, what could the president be doing? how much can a president affect not just the stock market but the economy in general? >> anderson, look, this is serious. no question this is not normal gyrations in the stock market. while jessica's right, the stock market is not the whole economy, same thing with gas prices. they're not the whole economy but when they are way up, it hits people in the pocketbook. people are getting frozen by this. i think the campaigning absolutely has to stop. in france the government has been called back from vacation. in london dealing with rioting in the street, the government has come back. it kind of is unacceptable that washington is not fully on this right now and that the president is out there giving speeches in the heartland as he plans to. this is a crisis. he had a meeting with ben bernanke today and all the white house did was release a statement to say he had a meeting with ben bernanke and they talked about jobs and the economy. everyone is talking about jobs and the economy. we need guidance. we need a solution. and we need confidence. there's a lack of confidence in leadership as david says as reflected by the stock market. remember, the stock market is all of us. it's all of our 401(k)s and all of our i.r.a.s. there needs to be some leadership here. >> jessica, is there any chance that they would try to get congress back early? they're in recess for five weeks? >> they are emphatic that's not the move they're going to make. it is a huge concern here and something that they continue to emphasize, anderson, which is you can't do it alone. even if you talk to top economists who want the president to take bold action, when you press them and say what can the president do on his own, ali said it, david said it, there's a limit. you need congress -- they control the purse strings. with congress out of town, the president is limited. he is not going out and making a call for some new sweeping, bolder action. washington right now is not in a mood for some sort of big compromise. you don't feel it in the air. there's not a vibe of deal making in town. and with congress gone, there isn't going to be a deal. bottom line is, no message from the white house they're calling them back and no bold moves on the horizon, anderson. >> jessica yellin, david gergen, ali velshi, thanks. let us know if you think congress should be called back. we're on facebook or follow me on twitter. i'm just tweeting some tonight and i'll try to tweet more. bono joins us shortly to talk about what the world can do for the people here and kanan, hip-hop artist born here. we had a stunning day today at a hospital near here. we'll show you what we saw. it's really going to open your eyes. we visit a feeding center where gunfire erupted. 19 years ago when i was here during the last famine at feeding centers -- there's shots going off and people are running -- you hear shooting a lot in mogadishu. it's very difficult to know where exactly it's coming from. dangerous and tragic times in somalia. more on that in just a moment. first, let's check in with isha sesay. what are you following? >> a massive police presence on the streets of london tonight. the government clamping down after four days of rioting. the latest on that and the chaos outside the capital being blamed for the deaths of three young men who were trying to protect their neighborhood. that and much more when "360" continues.av a dream that one day on the red hills of georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. i have a dream today! 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[ female announcer ] the 10 point safeguard check from walgreens. there's a way to stay well. >> we said at the top of the program the united nations telling us that 600,000 children are on the brink of starvation. 600,000. this should be a headline in every paper, every newscast, every day as long as this famine lasts. 600,000 children. along with that headline, others follow. the world food program running out of food. refugee camps filling up. graveyards are overflowing. a band of muslim extremists brutalizing the country, terrorizing people, preventing food aid from getting through. medical basics like childhood vaccinations, kids dying of measles and mumps. diarrhea's killing them. starvation makes diseases, back home barely worth a doctor's visit, makes those diseases deadly. it's the fighting that turns a drought into a famine into mass starvation. a man-made catastrophe. we saw it today at a feeding center here in mogadishu. our visit punctuated by gunfire. 19 years ago when i was here during last famine at feeting centers -- there's shots going off now and people are running. you hear shooting a lot. it's difficult to know where exactly it's coming from. 19 years ago at a feeding center like this they would have used big vats of food to feed people. it wasn't a very effective way to get severely malnourished kids healthy again. today they use this product. it's called plumping out. it's revolutionized the way malnutrition is treated. it's revolutionized the way malnutrition's treated. it's very cheap. you don't need to refrigerate it. you don't need a lot of education to know how to give it out to your kids. rather than hospitalize large numbers of kids and give them fortified milk they can hand out this peanut paste bringing kids back from the brink of death. remember, al shabaab, the terrorist group, just pulled out and african union troops, 9,000 of them, patrol the streets here. there are snipers and suicide bombers to still look out for. this is the capital of the world's best known failed state. it's true now and sadly it's been true back 19 years ago when i was visiting somalia for the last famine. i was in a town called bidoa. in the background you can hear ak-47 shots firing right now. i'm at a feeding center run by an organization called c.a.r.e. there are 30 or 40 feeding centers run by different organizations throughout the city. you'd almost expect there would be pandemonium here. there's shooting in the distance. people waiting for food. there's really not. in a way starvation seems to suck the life out of you. you just sit and wait. there's nothing more you can do. besides the fact that i look radically older, it's amazing how much is exactly the same here. that was 19 years ago. today, by the way, it's still in the hands of al shabaab. mogadishu today, they're gone, but the dangers here remain. there's hope from seeing lives saved and anger when efforts fall short. you experience emotions one after another. sometimes all at once. this is what we saw today in mogadishu at one of the big of the hospitals here that treats kids. there are so many kids in the hospital, the new arrivals are being treated in the halls. there are coughs and cries and you don't hear much complaining. that take energy, perhaps, and there isn't much of that. many children and their families have walked for weeks just to get here. this little boy can barely take any more steps. there's no running water, no electricity, after 20 years of fighting in mogadishu, there's not much left at all. a country which is the epicenter of a famine, there is a catastrophe. you would expect there would be more medicine. could you expect people getting fortified milk or plumpy nut. you don't see anything. it's mothers sitting with their kids and many kids end up dying. mothers try to keep the flies at bay. fathers soothe their sickly kids. the worry, the fear, it's the same the world over. what parent can stand it when their child is in pain? many kids are able to bounce back with quick intervention they gain weight day after day. for others, however, the malnutrition is too far along. we were introduced to a man who lost a daughter and now his 18-month-old son is sick as well. you must be worried about your child. how long has your child been sick? for the last six months he's been ill, he says. but as the famine has tightened around us, no one has been able to help us, so we came here and now we're just hopeful. in the corner of the room, the man and his wife sit in silence. between them we notice a small pile of cloth. it turns out it's covering the body of their son. his name was ali. he was just 1 year old. >> he came up from al shabaab and it was so difficult to get out, it took them so long to get out, by the time they arrived there was nothing anybody could do for him. he died two hours ago. >> this child has just died? >> yes. >> what will they do now? >> they don't have enough money to bury him. they are sitting and hoping that someone will come. in this situation, nobody has any money but they hope together people try to put money in together when things like this happen and they can raise the funds, otherwise they have no means of burying him. >> they have already lost their two other children. ali was the only child they had left. what will they do now? >> they said they don't know. for them the most important thing is to try to find a way to bury the child and then they'll try to figure out what they can do here. they have nothing here. they have nothing here. the only reason they took the risk was to save the baby and now the baby is dead. >> you have seen a lot of this over the last few weeks. >> yeah. moig's always difficult. somalia is difficult. people have been dying here for a while from the violence and insecurity. the famine is -- the numbers here are extraordinary. the u.n. is estimating that nearly 1 million will die if the aid pipeline isn't strengthened and if more funding doesn't come in to sustain the aid effort here. >> the aid effort is under way but for too many kids it may already be too late. they are not numbers. not statistics. they are boys and girls, names and with parents, boys and girls who have never had a fair chance at life. with me again tonight, dr. sanjay gupta and we should point out that we did help that family to bury their child. we thought it was the human thing to do. but there are so many others. you want to help everybody and yet there's not at times anything you can do. >> you know, we keep talking about the short full in the funding that the u.n. is receiving and you go into the hospital and you see what that funding means to people here. we were talking to the u.n. humanitarian coordinator a few days ago and he said reality is that people are going to die. that's just whats going to happen here now. the issue becomes how many more people are going to die before that funding comes in and before donations step up. >> i was just stunned, in this hospital -- and san jay, i wish you were with us today -- in this hospital, this is a major hospital in mogadishu, a city which has been, you know, at war for 20 years and conflict is at the epicenter of this massive global, you know, major problem in the horn of africa, this famine, and yet they seem to have very few supplies. doctors couldn't test people for their blood type because they don't have the equipment. it's stunning. what are you seeing there, sanjay? >> well, it's pretty similar, although in certain places it's getting a little bit better, anderson. it's tough to sort of draw generalizations of this large refugee camp. as you he know, uf been here, it's very big. there are different places that operate better than others. i will tell you that there are certain things that come into play with limited resources in a disaster situation like this. first of all, just basic triage. something that we have seen in hospitals all over the world trying to figure out who is the most critical and who is most likely to be saved and treating those patients first. also keep in mind that sometimes when someone has come in very malnourish and very dehydrated, giving fluids slowly and giving food slowly can actually be better. it can make it more likely the person will survive and also make your supplies last. but i think, as both of you have seen today, the key is to not let people get into this level of dire straits, trying to get resources, aid, food and water to people before they become this ill. >> it's also amazing when you talk to people, it's not just one child who is there. you say do you have other children and they'll say i have three other children but it turns out two of them have already died or one of them have already died. it seems like so many people here have lost -- have lost children. >> they put so much hope on that remaining child and risk so much. before you got here, people were telling us you judge which child is sicker? which child are you more likely to save? >> you have to choose at times between what child you think you can save? >> yeah. especially when you take the risk of that journey. some people don't have a money to get driven up so they walk and they are carrying the children and sometimes some of those children have to be left behind to save the one that's the most saveable. >> so much of this that you are seeing, sanjay, in southern somalia, in areas controlled by al shabaab, where they have stopped allowing inknock cuelations. what kind of impact -- and stopped allowing aid workers in to dispute food -- do you think you are seeing from the fact that they are not allowing children to be inoculated for basic things like measles? >> well, i mean, it's -- it's intolerable what we're seeing because -- i mean, as you know, that cluster-like conditions, the overcrowding of these camps, if somewhere were to get one of diseases that can be inoculated against, measles for example or viral illnesses. measles can spread like wildfire through a camp. 90% infectious contagious rate among people who are not vaccinated. so you take a completely preventible problem which, by the way, is additive to everything you've been talking about, and now you've made it that much worse. getting vaccinations in here would be a huge boon toward reducing some of these preventible deaths. >> and have -- have they finally now getting aid directly into mogadishu here? >> no, that's still part of the problem. it costs so much money to air lift aid in which is the quickest solution and that money just isn't there yet at the moment. in that feeding center we went into today, speak together administrator, he said last month they saw 18,000 people and now with this withdrawal from mogadishu, they're expecting to see 25,000. it's now competition for what little resources there