the u.n. general assembly on thursday approved a 500 million dollar emergency fund to pay for initial life-saving responses to global disasters or crises, deutsche presse agentur (dpa) reported. u.n. humanitarian coordinator jan egeland said the creation of the fund was an important step towards putting into practise programmes approved at a summit in september marking the united nation)s 60th anniversary. '2005 showed us that, in our interconnected world, a disaster local in origin can be global in impact,' said egeland, citing the december 2004 tsunami in the indian ocean and the october 2005 earthquake in pakistan. the central emergency revolving fund is comprised of loans and grants from governments and banking institutions. money from the fund will be disbursed within four days. secretary general kofi annan said the united nations will use the fund to make emergency grants for rescue operations in the aftermath of disasters. 'quite simply, it will save lives,' he said. --spa 14:55 local time 11:55 gmt nnnn
