McVeigh Executed – CD Cleaning Fluid Overdose – Ecstasy Manufacturer Jailed – NZ Herald Journo Strike – TVNZ Cuts Costs – Power Crisis

MCVEIGH EXECUTED: Timothy McVeigh, the most deadly terrorist ever on the US mainland, has been executed. McVeigh was executed on a beautiful spring morning. Warden Harley Lappin describes the execution. Other witnesses describe the execution. At 7.10am local time the first drug was administered. At 7.14am he was pronounced dead. McVeigh’s lawyer makes an impassioned plea against the death penalty. Around noon a hearse pulled away from the Terre Haute prison. Meanwhile in Oklahoma a further group of, nearly 230, witnesses watched on closed circuit TV. Attorney General John Ashcroft joined those who watched the execution. After watching the witnesses described what they saw. Only a quarter of those eligible to watch turned up for the broadcast. Many of the families of victims gathered in the cemetery for victims. McVeigh said nothing at his execution, but his lawyer released a poem Invictus

CD CLEANING FLUID OVERDOSE: The drug One4B, Fantasy, sold as CD cleaning fluid, has been implicated in the overdose of a Dunedin teenager. The drugs wholesaler says he is concerned about how the drug is being sold. The police simply want the drug outlawed.

ECSTASY MANUFACTURER JAILED: A 27-year-old PHd chemistry student was jailed for three years today for making ecstasy.

NZ HERALD JOURNO STRIKE: Around 100 journalists at the NZ Herald have gone on strike for four days. The paper will be published anyway.

TVNZ CUTS COSTS: TVNZ is to review its activities in an effort to cut costs. Meanwhile TV3 has declined an invitation to be part of TVNZ’s free to air digital TV service. TVNZ is disappointed.

POWER CRISIS: A committee is being convened to look at sky high wholesale electricity prices. The entire country is experiencing the coldest winter in NZ for five years. Some power companies are selling power for twice the price they are being forced to buy it at. The Consumers Institute says power companies should have been ready for the eventuality. There are concerns that the poor and elderly could suffer.

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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