MARCH 6, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 9

Milestones
By PENNY CAMPBELL

DIED. OFRA HAZA, 41, Israeli pop diva who achieved international fame singing traditional Yemeni poems set to a Western-style dance beat; in Tel Aviv. Born into poverty, she burst onto the music scene in the late 1980s and became the most successful Israeli singer on the world stage. She topped the European charts, had 16 albums go gold or platinum and sang the theme song for Steven Spielberg's 1998 animated hit Prince of Egypt.

DIED. HOSSAM EDDIN MUSTAFA, 64, acclaimed Egyptian film director; in Cairo. The U.S.-educated Mustafa, who started his career as an assistant to American director Cecil B. DeMille, was best known for his screen adaptations of novels by Nobel literature prizewinner Naguib Mahfouz. Mustafa made more than 100 films and created dozens of popular Egyptian historical soap operas.

DIED. SIR STANLEY MATTHEWS, 85, English football icon; in Staffordshire, northern England. Famed for fooling opponents with his trademark left-right "shimmy," Matthews was also known as a gentleman player: he was never booked during his 33-year career. Matthews, who made his professional debut in 1932 at age 17, won innumerable trophies and in 1965 became Britain's first football knight. After playing more than 750 matches, including 54 for the England team, he retired in 1965 at the record age of 50, later saying his only regret was that he quit too soon.

DIED. ANATOLY SOBCHAK, 62, former mayor of St. Petersburg and one of Russia's best-known democrats in the perestroika era; in Kaliningrad. The Siberian-born Sobchak became the city's mayor in 1991 and prominently resisted that year's abortive coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Sobchak's reformist credentials were later tarnished, as St. Petersburg became riddled with corruption. He was voted out of office in 1996 and fled to Paris a year later, allegedly to avoid graft charges. Sobchak returned to Russia following the 1999 appointment of his former deputy and protégé Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister.

PARDONED. PRESTON KING, 64, African-American political scientist who refused to join the U.S. Army because his draft-board would not address him as "Mr.," as they did white recruits; in Washington. After receiving an 18-month prison sentence for draft evasion, King fled to Britain, where he now teaches at Lancaster University and his daughter is a Member of Parliament. U.S. President Bill Clinton pardoned King to allow him to attend the funeral of his brother.

CONVICTED. RENZO MATSUSHITA, 79, ex-president of a Japanese drug company, of professional negligence for his role in the death of a patient infected with the HIV virus through tainted blood products; in Osaka. Matsushita was sentenced to two years in jail in the first of what's expected to be a series of trials--some involving government officials--related to a faulty-blood scandal that erupted in 1996.