Security agencies has reportedly rounded up nearly 250 activists of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) activists and sealed several of its offices in the continuing crackdown across the country on the second day today.

The government, however, said while Pakistan was implementing the UNSC resolution in letter and spirit, it was still awaiting evidence from India against individuals and organisations being blamed in the Mumbai attack.

The authorities also closed educational institutions and relief centres set up by the group in various parts of the country, but said the government would devise a plan to run them under government control.

Officials here said all bank accounts of the organisation had been frozen.

The government also imposed a ban on the media, proscribing the publication of statements of leaders of the group.

The government has also cancelled the declaration of weekly ‘Ghazwa’ and the monthly ‘Al-Dawa’ published by the organisation.

Chief of JuD Hafiz Saeed and other key leaders have been confined in their houses under stringent security.

Meanwhile, while Pakistan has received a copy of the UNSC resolution, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the government was still awaiting concrete evidence against the JuD’s involvement in the Mumbai attack from India.

“Our own investigations cannot proceed beyond a certain point without the provision of credible information and evidence pertaining to the Mumbai attack,” Qureshi said in a statement he read out on TV networks around midnight yesterday.

Referring to the Security Council resolution 1267, under which certain individuals and entities have been designated by the United Nations Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee on December 10, Qureshi said Pakistan was complying with the listing of JuD and certain other trusts as well as individuals by the sanctions committee.

The minister said the Pakistan government had initiated investigations on its own.

Jerusalem, December 12
Fifth grade students of an American Jewish school have written individual letters to the brave Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel, who risked her life to save two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg from terrorists during the siege of Nariman House in Mumbai about two weeks ago.

“Dear Sandra, thank you for saving Moshe,” wrote Daniel Smith, a fifth-grader at Solomon Schecter Day School of Nassau County, in appreciation of the exemplary courage shown by the nanny.

Smith was joined by his fifth grade classmate, Jennifer Lipman, the school principal, Dr Cindy Dolgin, and Judaic studies teacher, Lizet Romano, who initiated the project, in handing over the letters to the Israeli consulate to transfer it to Samuel, currently in Israel with Moshe.

“Everyone at my school thinks you are a hero. Thank you for all you have done,”
wrote Lipman.

The initiative recognises Samuel’s heroic act on the Jewish traditional belief that says, “One who saves one person, saves an entire nation.”

The students assured the Indian nanny that “her good deed did not go unnoticed
in their community.”

The boy’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, were both killed in the attack on Nariman House.

The Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County, located in Jericho, New York, is a Jewish Day Elementary School.

A video of the event can be viewed online at www.israelpolitik.org. — PTI

Brussels, December 12
European Union leaders reached a unanimous agreement on an ambitious climate change package at the end of a two-day summit in Brussels today, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

“It is quite historic what has happened here,” summit chairman Sarkozy said at a
press conference.

“No continent has given itself such binding rules we have adopted with unanimity.”

The EU’s climate-energy package, the “20-20-20” deal, seeks to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, make 20 per cent energy savings and bring renewable energy sources up to 20 per cent of total energy use.

Sarkozy said the targets had not been watered down during the negotiations amid calls by several states for amendments to the initial package at a time of recession.

“The objectives remain the same,” said Sarkozy. “No way can the (economic) crisis be used as an excuse not to move on the environment,” he said.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Baroso said the agreement showed that the 27-nation bloc was serious about tackling global warming.

“These are the most ambitious proposals anywhere in the world. Europe has today passed its credibility test. We mean business when we talk about climate,” he said.

Baroso said the recent election of Barack Obama as US president offered a
chance for a joint effort between Europe and the world’s biggest economy to
combat global warming.

We are asking him to join Europe and with us lead this global effort,” he said. — AFP