Portal:Current events/2004 May 2
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May 2, 2004 (Sunday)
- Investment banker Frank Quattrone of Credit Suisse First Boston is convicted of obstructing justice and witness tampering. Quattrone played a significant role in the Initial Public Offerings of Amazon, Netscape, Intuit and other Internet companies. (NYT)
- Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller resigns one day after Poland becomes a member of the European Union. His government was the most unpopular of the nine that have ruled Poland since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. Miller's Left Democratic Alliance party, plagued by a series of corruption scandals (including the Rywin affair), hit a record low in popularity rankings in the last months which led some of its members to break away and form a new party, the Social Democracy of Poland. President Aleksander Kwasniewski announces he will designate Marek Belka, a liberal economist, as new prime minister. (Reuters) Archived 2005-03-19 at the Wayback Machine
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- Israel's Likud Party votes in a referendum not to pull out of the Gaza Strip unilaterally. The referendum's defeat is seen as a major blow to the Sharon government. Sharon subsequently says that he will not resign and may modify the plan. (BBC)
- Palestinian gunmen kill a pregnant Israeli mother, Tali Hatuel, and all four of her young daughters near the Kissufim Crossing in the Gaza Strip. The killers are shot dead by security forces. The incident is believed to have influenced voting intentions in the referendum held the same day. (INN) (BBC)
- Martín Torrijos wins Panama's presidential election. (BBC)
- U.S. civilian contractor Thomas Hamill, who was taken hostage by Iraqi insurgents on April 9, is found by U.S. forces south of Tikrit after escaping his captors. (MSNBC)
- The Sasser worm is spreading. It has the chance of becoming as big as the Blaster worm epidemic because it can infect computers running Microsoft Windows directly without user interaction. (AP)
- A government report has found that secret searches in the U.S. are up 85% since 2001. (Baltimore Sun)[permanent dead link]
- A shell containing mustard gas, was found in the middle of a street west of Baghdad. Officials from the Defense Department commented that this was part of an improvised explosive device (IED). It was not certain that use was to be made as a bomb. (Fox News) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)