The Associated Press reports from DAVOS, Switzerland:

Bill Gates rode to the rescue of a beleaguered health fund Thursday by pledging $750 million to fight three of the world's killer diseases.

The Microsoft founder says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's donation to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria comes on top of $650 million it contributed to the fund over the past decade.

"These are tough economic times, but that is no excuse for cutting aid to the world's poorest," Gates said. Read the full story.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, which is jointly owned by Comcast Corp. and General Electric.)

John Cassidy of the New Yorker has an interesting blog post about the annual gathering of the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I hadn't realised that the delegates paid so much - tickets start at $71,000 - to attend. In Cassidy's opinion, 'The point of Davos is not to learn or think or do deals, but simply to be there - and to be seen to be there.'