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January 30, 2010 Gates Foundation to Double Spending on Vaccines By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective public health measure, Bill and Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the next decade, to at least $10 billion. The change could save the lives of as many as eight million children by 2020, Mr. Gates calculated. He said he hoped his gift would inspire other charities and donor nations to do the same. “Vaccines are a real success story,” Mr. Gates said in an interview before the announcement, which he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The cost is tiny, and yet it saves more lives than any other component of a health care system.” Julian Lob-Levyt, the executive secretary of the GAVI Alliance, a partnership among drug companies, health agencies and charities bringing vaccines to poor countries, said he “hugely welcomed” the announcement. “If other donors...

Andrew Ross Sorkin is The New York Times’s chief mergers and acquisitions reporter and a columnist. Mr. Sorkin is also the editor of DealBook (nytimes.com/dealbook), an online daily financial report he started in 2001. In addition, Sorkin is an assistant editor of business and finance news, helping guide and shape the paper’s coverage. Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — and Themselves is Sorkin’s first book. Sorkin, who has appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and on “Charlie Rose” on PBS, is a frequent guest host of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” He won a Gerald Loeb Award, one of the highest honors in business journalism, in 2004 for breaking news. He also won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. In 2008 and 2009, Vanity Fair named him to its “Next Establishment” list. He was also named to the Directorship 100, a ...

UKBP via Reuters TV Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry – the key pointsWhat the former prime minister told the Chilcot panel in brief What the former prime minister told the Chilcot panel in brief   • Tony Blair told the inquiry he believed Saddam Hussein was a "monster" before 9/11 but accepted that he would have to make the best of the situation. At his first meeting with George Bush, in February 2001, Blair discussed Iraq. But it was in the context of trying to get a better sanctions regime. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, this view changed dramatically. "I would fairly describe our policy up to September 11 as doing our best ... but with a different calculus of risk assessment ... The crucial thing after September 11 was that the calculus of risk changed." • He said "nothing was decided" when he had a one-to-one dinner with Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. It it is important for leaders to establish a "close and strong relati...

Feathery flourish A peacock is seen at the Santa Fe Zoo, in Medellin, Colombia, on Jan. 27. from msnbc.com