Kimberly McCarthy

 Kimberly McCarthy was the 500th person to be executed in Texas, the first state to earn the dubious distinction since capital punishment was reinstituted there in 1982. Texas leads the nation in wrongful convictions, exonerations and state killings.

Despite pleas from thousands of protesters, prison officials administered a single dose of pentobarbital and pronounced McCarthy dead at 6:37 pm local time Wednesday. McCarthy, a 52-year-old African-American, had been convicted for the 1997 robbery, beating and fatal stabbing of Dorothy Booth, her 71-year-old white neighbor.

McCarthy, a former nursing home therapist who became addicted to crack cocaine, reportedly cut off Booth’s finger in an attempt to steal the retired college professor’s wedding ring. She blamed the crime on drug dealers but was also linked by DNA to the murders of two other senior citizens.

She was first woman to be put to death in the US since 2010 and only the fifth in Texas since 1854. Texas has carried out nearly 40 per cent of America's executions, with more than 1,300 since the Supreme Court resurrected the dormant law in 1976. Governor Rick Perry alone has overseen more than 250 executions during his time in office, according to human rights-focused journalist Rhania Khalek, the most of any governor in history.

“I just wanted to say thanks to all who have supported me over the years,” McCarthy wrote in her last statement. “Thank you everybody, this is not a loss, this is a win. You know where I am going.”

Her final meal was pepper steak, mashed potatoes with gravy along with mixed vegetables and cake.

She became the eighth person to be put to death in Texas in 2013 alone, although after Wednesday 282 more inmates will remain on Texas’ death row. Seven Texan men are scheduled to die in the coming months, according to the Associated Press. McCarthy, the Death Penalty Information Center noted, is the 17th person in America to be put to death in the first six months of 2013.

McCarthy was granted a retrial in 2002 after proving that the original prosecution intentionally excluded African-American jurors. She was again convicted and returned to death row. She was granted a stay of execution in January and then April of this year.

Other states have altogether stopped administering lethal injections. Oregon has not executed a single person since 1997, and California, despite having the nation’s largest death row population at 727, has not carried out an execution since 2006.

Sixty-one per cent of all Americans responded in the affirmative when asked in a 2013 Gallup poll if they support capital punishment. A 2012 Texas Tribune poll indicated that a mere 21 per cent of Texans were opposed to the death penalty, evidence of which came during Governor Perry’s 2011 run for the presidency, when he was roundly applauded for overseeing so many executions.

“I’ve never struggled [to sleep at night] at all,” he said. “In the state of Texas when you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you are involved in another crime that killed one of our citizens – you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas.”

The nationwide decline in executions is, at least in part, attributable to unearthed evidence that has exonerated wrongfully convicted Americans across the country. Earlier this year the National Registry of Exonerations revealed that Texas – and Dallas County, in particular, where McCarthy was convicted – is the national leader in exonerations.

A probe, ordered after that study and published April 2013, revealed that at least 117 people in Texas were imprisoned over the last 25 years for crimes they did not commit.

“Texas has been showcased as the number on state in the nation for wrongful convictions,” state Rep. Ruth McClendon told the Houston Chronicle. “Each conviction of an innocent person reveals a tragic failure of the justice system.”

Taliban has launched an attack in central Kabul, targeting the presidential palace, the CIA and ISAF headquarters, the Ministry of Defense, as well as an international hotel. All the assailants have been killed in the 90-minute showdown.

A Reuters reporter who was at the palace to cover a presser by president Karzai along with some 20 other journalists said heavy gunfire was heard, and smoke from an explosion had blanketed the area.
First of all, one insurgent reportedly opened fire with an automatic rifle at a gate to the palace.
Then, palace guards, as well as guards from the adjacent CIA compound, reportedly fired back when several attackers fired on the west gate as journalists were waiting to enter the compound for the president’s press conference.

All the insurgents were killed in the 90-minute showdown, according to Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi. 

“What I saw from the outside of that gate is more of a blast wall around the green zone area, as there were giant holes in the concrete walls, and the entire gate was destroyed. Apparently, one vehicle was able to get inside, and one vehicle was stopped at the gate, and that’s when the attack began,” local journalist Courtney Body told RT.

It was not immediately clear whether Karzai was in the compound at the time. The area of the city where the attack took place is the site of several important organizations, including the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, as well as the headquarters for the CIA and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Up to 10 blasts heard in Kabul, near Palace, CIA, ISAF HQ, UNAMA. Smoke rising over central #Kabul pic.twitter.com/9F54LmmdAb via @nohodge
— Harun Najafizada (@BBCNajafizada) June 25, 2013

The American Embassy in Kabul was reportedly placed on lockdown, with ISAF confirming a lockdown over its Twitter feed; other facilities in the area are said to be under lockdown as well. According to the BBC, SMS messages were sent on behalf of the Taliban stating that targets were the presidential palace, the Ministry of Defense, as well as the Ariana Hotel, which is popular with international visitors.  

The CIA building in central Kabul was reported to be on fire shortly after the attack, according to 1TV News, a local news broadcaster.

Ambassador James Dobbins, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was currently in Kabul after returning from Doha over the weekend, where talks with the Taliban were derailed after the insurgent group opened an embassy-like compound, declaring it the 'Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.'

Taliban officials stated that the newly opened office in Qatar was a response to calls by opponents for the launch of a political process to reach some measure of peace, and end three decades of fighting in Afghanistan. 

Steve Zunes, a professor of international studies at the University of San Francisco, pointed out to RT, that the Afghan army would never succeed unless the Afghan people support the country's leadership in the first place.

“Even if they are very well trained, even if they have the very best equipment, the strength of the Afghan government <…> doesn’t have credibility with the Afghan people. While the Afghans don’t subscribe to the Taliban’s ideology, they are very frustrated with corruption, inaptitude, and arbitrariness of the Afghan government, including the ongoing repression. They’re resentful of the foreign presence to prop up this government. And it’s this kind of environment that leads to the rise of extremists. So it’s not a security question.”

A group of gunmen have stormed a hotel in northern Pakistan, killing ten foreign tourists, Pakistani security officials report. Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian citizens were among the victims of the attack.

This is the first attack on tourists in the far flung region of the country and the motives behind it are unclear as of yet.

"Unknown people entered a hotel where foreign tourists were staying last night and opened fire," Ali Sher, a senior police officer in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan province, told Reuters. "They killed 10 foreign tourists and fled."

He added that three Chinese, five Ukrainians, one Russian and a guide were gunned down in the attack that happened at around 1:00 am local time (20:00 GMT).

Authorities have deployed a large number of security personnel to the area and have sealed off the scene of the crime.

The bodies will have to be recovered by helicopter because of the remoteness of the northern province that borders China and Kashmir, an anonymous official told Reuters.