Bill Gates, Mayor Bloomberg pool riches to fight smoking

Not merely content to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and stadiums here, Mayor Bloomberg is joining with Bill Gates to spread his anti-smoking crusade around the world.

The multibillionaire pair announced Wednesday a joint $500million campaign to persuade smokers in Asia, Africa and across the globe to put down their cigarettes.

"There are now 300,000 fewer smokers in New York City than there were six years ago," Bloomberg said, crediting his ban on smoking in bars among other anti-smoking efforts.

"The progress we've achieved here in New York helped convince me to take on the global initiative because I believe that a world in which everyone is aware of the destructiveness of tobacco and empowered to avoid it is within our reach."

Bloomberg and Gates, who have a combined net worth of $70 billion, announced the joint campaign in a slick midtown presentation. It featured a video of worldwide efforts, such as a smoking ban at the upcoming Beijing Olympics and a campaign in Brazil to print disturbing images on cigarettes packs to illustrate the dangers of smoking.

"Tobacco is a very, very big killer," Gates said, citing statistics that tobacco is behind more preventable deaths around the world than tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria combined.

For Gates, the announcement was his first since relinquishing the reins at Microsoft and committing himself full time to philanthropy.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will devote $125 million over five years to the anti-smoking effort, including $24 million that it will hand over to Bloomberg's foundation to administer.

For Bloomberg, the announcement represents a dramatic expansion of a smaller effort he launched with his foundation in 2005.

At the time, he invested $125million in efforts such as anti-smoking TV ads and campaigns to raise tobacco taxes in countries like China and India, where smoking rates are high. He's now investing another $250 million over four years.

Gates says his money will fund some work in countries with high smoking rates, and focus on poor and developing countries, where smoking is not as prevalent but has been rising.

In an onstage chat with PBS TV host Charlie Rose during their event Wednesday, the duo said they've been friends for years and are discussing other joint philanthropic efforts.