Afghan School Girls Sprayed With Poison

One hundred and twenty-two Afghan school girls and three teachers were sprayed with poison and hospitalized today, the latest in a long string of poisonings designed to deter girls from going to school. The poison induced dizziness, vomiting, and headaches, and made some girls pass out, but "generally they are not in critical condition," a hospital doctor said, according to CNN. "They are more traumatized." Forty are still at the hospital, but the rest have been released.

"The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them going to school," a spokesman for the Takhar Province police said. "Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated, but the government's enemies don't want this." It's the second major poisoning in Takhar in as many months; the last one sent more than 170 women to the hospital. (More poison stories.)