Over 120 girls and teachers were hospitalized Wednesday from the Bib Hajera Girls School in the Northern Afghanistan province of Takhar after being poisoned by a sprayed substance, CNN reports.

As of Thursday, forty girls were still under a doctor’s watch with symptoms ranging from dizziness, vomiting, headaches and loss of consciousness, Dr. Habibullah Rostaqi, the hospital director, said.

“Generally they are not in a critical condition. We are looking after them, but let’s see what happens later. We understand so far from the situation … they are more traumatized,” he said.

According to the BBC, police contemplate radical insurgents sprayed toxic materials in the classroom.

This has not been the first attack on schoolchildren in Takhar. Contaminated drinking water poisoned 150 students last month. Although no group has yet to claim responsibility for either attack, many have begun blaming the Taliban because the entire region is infamous for housing radical extremists wanting to suppress woman’s education, Reuters reports.

During the Educations World Forum in London January 2011 Dr. Farooq Wardak, Afgahan Education Minister, claimed that the Taliban surrender their fight again woman’s education. However, the group never confirmed the allegation, according to CNN.

However, last week, in areas where the Taliban are highly supported, the insurgents closed down 550 schools in 11 provinces.

Lutfullah Mashal, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesman, told Reuters he believes the group’s newest offensive is to close schools before the 2014 withdrawal of foreign combat troops, which NATO just signed off Monday on President Barack Obama’s exit strategy, the BBC reports.

During the Taliban’s six-year reign, women were banned from education and work. After the group’s fall from power in 2001, women returned to schools, especially in the country’s capital, Kabul. However, there are still many attacks against students, teachers, and school buildings in areas where the Taliban are most supported.

Furthermore, the constant struggle over Afghan schools has created a strain in the newly established government, especially in the Eastern provinces. The insurgents’ anger comes from the government’s banning of motorbikes, a favorite of the Taliban. There has been a spike in attacks against schools after the government banned to use of motorbikes.

“The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them going to school,” said Khalilullah Aseer, spokesman for Takhar police, told CNN. “That’s something we and the people believe. Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated, but the government’s enemies don’t want this.”

Image Courtesy of  Lizette Potgieter / Shutterstock.com

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Vinegar tainted with antifreeze is suspected of killing 11 people and sickening 120 after a communal Ramadan meal in China’s far western region of Xinjiang on August 21. Investigators suspect the victims consumed vinegar that was put in two plastic barrels which had previously been used to store toxic antifreeze, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

According to official Chinese media the mass food poisoning occurred on a Saturday night in a village close to Hotan City in Xinjiang, a border region that abuts Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. The victims were ethnic Muslims sharing an evening meal after the daily fast observed during the holy month of Ramadan.

Xinhua said children as young as 6 were among the dead. One person among the 120 sickened was in critical condition. Authorities were still testing to confirm the source of the poisoning, it said. China’s food safety record has been battered by the rampant use of illegal or substandard additives by unscrupulous food producers.

Milk powder laced with the industrial chemical melamine killed at least six children and sickened 300.000 in 2008. Producers added the nitrogen-rich melamine powder so their milk would seem higher in protein. Revenge attacks using rat poison or other chemicals are also common in China, where access to firearms and other deadly weapons is tightly controlled.

In April, three children died and another 35 were sickened by milk tainted with nitrite. An investigation showed that a local dairy farmer had put the poison into their competitor’s milk supply. Accidental contamination is also a problem, caused by low hygiene standards, particularly in rural areas, and weak quality control by regulators.

Moreover this year there has been hundreds of people, seriously sickened by clenbuterol-tainted pork. In fact, around twelve noodle makers were ordered to stop production because they were using ink, industrial dyes and paraffin wax as ingredients, and 16 tons of pork was pulled from the marketplace for containing sodium borate.

This chemical seemingly transforms cheap pork into darker, higher-value “beef.” Except from that, Chinese authorities became conscious of a 40-ton bean sprout debacle — farmers were using sodium nitrite (a known carcinogen), urea, antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzaledenine to make the sprouts grow faster and look shinier.

Chinese officials have made 12 arrests and have investigated 1.200 criminal cases concerning “the illegal adding of non-edible materials in food” till now. Chinese officials have also destroyed key elements of black market food production as part of the latest crackdown, leading to 2.000 arrests and 5.000 business shutdowns.

Furthermore, exploding watermelons and pork scandals, caused by excessive chemical use, took hold of international media headlines. In the first six months of 2011, 45 people died from food poisoning, mostly from toxic chemicals according to China’s Ministry of Health, but despite all the government crackdown efforts food safety scandals continue in China.

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