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Dozens of schoolgirls in Afghanistan were admitted to hospital on Tuesday after two suspected poisonous gas attacks on schools, officials said, the latest in a spate of similar incidents. Thirty schoolgirls in the northern city of Kunduz and six in Kabul were admitted to hospital, health officials and the interior ministry said. "Others are also coming in. We don't know the exact number of girls affected, it could be many. It's a similar incident to what happened in Kabul and Kunduz last week," said Homayun Khamosh, head of the Kunduz city hospital where girls were admitted.

KABUL - More than 80 schoolgirls have fallen ill in three cases of mass sickness over the past week in northern Afghanistan, raising fears that militants who oppose education for girls are using poison to scare them away from school. The latest case occurred Sunday when 13 girls became sick at school, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea on Saturday, and 23 got sick last Wednesday. All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill. (snip) The Health Ministry in Kunduz said blood samples were inconclusive and were being sent...

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

SNIPPET: "Kabul, 21 April (AKI) - At least 12 female students were hospitalised in Afghanistan on Wednesday after inhaling a poisonous substance sprayed at a school in northern Afghanistan. The 12 students of the Fatima Zahra Girl School, and a teacher and an assistant were mysteriously poisoned, Hamayon Khamush, director of the hospital in Kunduz city, was quoted as saying by Xinhua." SNIPPET: "To defend their ideology, Taliban militants have attacked girl students with gas and acid." SNIPPET: "In May last year 90 girls were hospitalised in Kapisa province, north-east of the capital, after someone sprayed toxic chemicals in the...

A 12-year-old Florida student was arrested earlier this month after he "deliberately passed gas to disrupt the class," according to police.

SCOTLAND Yard believes it has thwarted an al-Qaeda nerve gas attack aimed at ministers and MPs in the British Parliament. The plot, hatched last year, is understood to have been discovered in coded emails on computers seized from terror suspects in Britain and Pakistan. Police and MI5 later identified an al-Qaeda cell that had carried out extensive research and video-recorded reconnaissance missions in preparation for the terror attack. The encrypted emails are said to have been decoded with the assistance of an al-Qaeda "supergrass". By revealing the terrorists' code, he was also able to help MI5 and GCHQ - the...

ROME Italian investigators are looking into a second ring of suspected terrorists who may have been plotting a chemical weapons assault on Rome. An Algerian, a Pakistani, a Tunisian and three Iraqis were arrested in early morning raids Friday. A group of Moroccans was arrested last month with a map of the U.S. Embassy and large quantities of a cyanide compound that experts say could have been turned into a deadly gas. The ring busted Friday is thought to be completely independent of the Moroccans, officials said, although both likely have ties to Al Qaeda's network of terror. Investigators said ...

In Japan, a senior member of the doomsday cult responsible for a deadly nerve gas attack on a Tokyo subway has been sentenced to death. Tomomasa Nakagawa is the tenth member of the Aum Supreme Truth cult to receive the death penalty. Nakagawa bowed to the judge after the verdict was handed down. The court ruled that the 41-year-old played a "key role" in releasing sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system in 1995. The attack killed 12 people and injured thousands. The trials stemming from the incident will soon reach a climax. Shoko Asahara, the leader of the cult,...

Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs Peter Beaumont and Antony BarnettSunday June 8, 2003The Observer Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort. The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are...

As London comes to terms with the threat of a terror attack, the Prime Minister has counselled that we should be vigilant on the Tube, and the emergency services and hospitals have given reassurances that the aftermath of an attack could be handled. We know we are living with a new level of threat: the difficulty lies in calculating a response that is not hysterical, but would meet any terror onslaught that uses chemical and biological weapons. There is no hard evidence that any attack on the Tube is likely, let alone imminent - but with the UK now identified...

45 hurt in nightclub gas incident Twenty police officers were called to the scene Police are investigating how 45 people were taken ill at a Hertforshire nightclub after inhaling a gas similar to CS gas. The Pulse nightclub in Stevenage and a neighbouring club were evacuated on Saturday after people started vomiting and suffering from the effects of the gas just before 0200 GMT. Emergency services treated 25 people at the scene and a further 20 were taken to Lister Hospital in Stevenage. It is not believed any of those treated was seriously injured. The Pulse and neighbouring Vogue nightclubs...