UPI's St. Valentine package

United Press International is pleased to offer you a wide range of St. Valentine-related stories produced by several of their reporters, writers and correspondents around the world.

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Valentine's Day from around the world

By United Press International

Valentine thoughts, customs and stories from UPI's eyes and ears around the world:

* In THAILAND, where Valentine's Day is serious business, the government issued what it claimed were the world's first scented postage stamps to commemorate the big day. A million of the rose-scented stamps went on sale in early February and were quickly snapped up by collectors and lovers. Meanwhile, Bangkok's "Love Village" is awarding marriage certificates in ruby-studded gold frames to 10 lucky couples who register their marriage on Valentine's Day. District officials in Bang Rak, which means "Love Village" in Thai, said the framed marriage certificates, each bedecked with 18 rubies, would be given to the winners of a lucky drawing at a local department store on Thursday. They expect about 1,200 newlywed couples to register their marriage in the district this Valentine's Day, surpassing last year's record of 1,100 couples. (John Hail, Bangkok)

* A small cross-section of PAKISTANI youth, especially in cities, loves to celebrate Valentine's Day with enthusiasm. People in the big cities celebrate the day with the exchange of flowers and of messages, which newspapers print in special editions. Many restaurants organize special menus for lunch and dinner, and people flock to flower markets in their cities. In Pakistani society, where Islamic hard-liners strongly discourage New Year celebrations and honor killing is a common practice, it is very pleasant to celebrate a love day. (Aamir Shah, Islamabad)

* In LEBANON, shops and restaurants hard-hit by economic woes are trying to attract lovers with new and original ideas to celebrate Valentine's Day. Restaurants offer tempting menus with love songs, flowers and gifts at prices ranging from an average of $40 per couple to $80. A well-known flower shop promises a serenade with every bouquet of roses. The al-Mustaqbal newspaper opted to remind lovers on Valentine's Day of old love poems performed by the most famous Arab singers, like Egytian Oum Koulsoum and Mohammed Abdel Wahhab as well as Lebanon's Feyrouz. (Dalal Saoud, Beirut.)

* In JAPAN, where some things are done differently compared with much of the West (in Japan, pages in books, magazines and newspapers are flipped from right to left; cars are driven on the left side of the road, as they are in the United Kingdom), the girls give the boys gifts, mostly chocolates, on Valentine's Day. The boys are supposed to return the favor on March 14. (Patrick Killen, Tokyo)

* FRANCE is indeed a land of love, but sadly, not THE land of love. A survey published this week by the international condom company Durex places France seventh in the average number of sexual relations per year. The tally adds up to 110 lovemaking sessions a year for the French -- or about once every three days -- compared to 124 for the Americans. But the French clearly like variety. The average Gaul has about 13.2 different partners. That's second only to Americans, who lead the world with 14.3 partners, according to the Durex study. The Brits fare middlingly, with about 8.8 partners on average, and the Indians and Chinese round out the list with 3 and 2.1 different partners, respectively. Le Parisien newspaper, which published some extracts of the study, called France's sexual prowress "not bad." (Lisa Bryant, Paris)

* The TURKS, a ready audience for any consumer gimmick, have been embracing Feb. 14 with the same eagerness they have accorded Mother's Day or Father's Day for more than a decade now. It is impossible not to notice the full-page newspaper ads, pink balloons, heart-shaped candies and all sorts of fuzzy animals that are readily bought for loved ones as the occasion's name in Turkey is "The Beloved Day." Sometimes, however, Beloved Day can bring on family rows, when forgetfulness or a shortage of cash leads a husband to come home empty-handed to his wife, who reacts like a heartbroken teenager. (Seva Ulman, Ankara)

* St. Valentine's Day is still honored in BRITAIN, although a bit of the romance appears to have gone out the barred window. Police in Brighton, England, are mailing Valentine's Day cards -- to their top 10 car thieves and burglars. The poem inside the cards reads: "Will you be my valentine?/ I'm hoping we can meet/ We have a cozy cell prepared/ Here at John Street ... " (Al Webb, London)

* This is the day of the year that flower and chocolate sellers wait for! While the bitter and hard-bitten among us AUSTRALIANS (and there are many here in Oz) deride it as yet another gooey Americanism like Halloween and Mother's Day that's come to invade our shores (and our hip pockets), there are those young, infatuated and soft-centered souls who treat it with great import. They must be demented! (Stephen Sheldon, Sydney)

* Valentine's Day is a relatively new concept for JORDANIANS -- for the affluent ones who reside in Western Amman who have access to the Internet and satellite televisions and can afford to buy a red rose on Feb. 14 for 10 times its value. Thus entrepreneurs design the occasion to attract the Jordanians who want to buy an expensive dinner for a sweetheart or a romantic overnight in one of the many five-star hotels. The younger ones from Amman's expensive private schools make the best customers for the early evening coffee shops, movie theaters, gift shops and Hallmark card shops. But for the majority of the young and old in this country, Feb. 14 is like any other day, consumed with a struggle to make a living and putting food on the table. (Sana Abdallah-Kamal, Amman)

* Can't even begin to tell you how much it's a non-celebration in ARGENTINA these days ... (Rodolfo A. Windhausen, United Nations, commenting on his native and now cash-strapped Buenos Aires)

* Valentine's Day is not especially popular in UZBEKISTAN. Only some very young people in cities celebrate it, presenting valentines or verbally giving their compliments to sweethearts. That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, however. One respected married man, who has loved another woman from afar for many years, conveys his greetings on Valentine's Day every year. Another woman, 60, received a letter from her former husband many years after their divorce. In it he said he had not forgotten her and asked her to send him a photograph of her and her daughters. She received the letter on Feb. 14. (Marina Kozlova, Tashkent)

* In SYRIA, where Valentine's Day has been celebrated less than 10 years, the price of one red rose from 70 cents to $2 for Valentine's Day while shops decorated their windows with red balloons and hearts. You can even buy a bird for the occasion or, for those who prefer their gifts fuzzy, two white mice in a red cage. The stagnant economy has cramped sales, however: Salim Samaan, the owner of a flower shop in Damascus noted a drop in buying flowers this year because of the "difficult living conditions." A Valentine dinner at a city restaurant or nightclub could reach $120 per couple at a time the average monthly salary of an employee does not exceed $80. (Thaana Imam, Damascus)

* Valentine's Day is quite new to BULGARIA. It began to gain popularity after the fall of communism in 1989, particularly among young people. Before that almost no one had heard of such a thing. Now we add an extra twist: Bulgaria is a wine-producing country, and Valentine's Day coincides with an ancient Bulgarian festival known as St. Trifon's Day, dedicated to wines and vines. It is on this day that vine growers start cropping their plants, and most Bulgarians believe that to be healthy one should honor St. Trifon by drinking a lot of wine on Feb. 14. One wine producer cashed in several years ago by registering St. Valentine as a brand name. He advertises his St. Valentine wines as an "elixir of love" and they are among the most popular in the country. Sales are particularly high on Feb. 14 as Bulgarians enjoy the double pleasure of combining traditions of East and West. (Vladimir Zhelyazkov, Sofia)

(Compiled by Elizabeth Manning, UPI's deputy international editor.)

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Feature: St. Valentine born of cruelty not love

By Christoffer Ericsater

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Valentine's Day from the perspective of today's lovers is a story of chocolate, roses and kisses, but history shows us it is also a story of political suppression, personal sacrifice and unachievable love.

For 1,700 years the day has evolved, from an erotic festival to a Christian celebration of saints, to a genteel custom of sending love notes.

Now it is estimated that Americans spend about $900 million on cards, $700 million on flowers and $1.09 billion on sweets, including 10 billion chocolate hearts or other Valentine's Day treats.

Furthermore, $11 million in diamonds and other jewelry is sold for Valentine's Day, according to the International Mass Retail Association.

But why do we celebrate Valentine's Day and who really was St. Valentine?

In the year 270 A.D., during the period of the Roman emperor Claudius II Gothicus, the empire had reached near economic ruin. During Claudius II's administration, the silver content of the denarius fell to just 0.02 percent.

Under Claudius' economic reforms, market prices began to increase. Inflation went from 0.02 percent in the second century to about 15 percent in the third century. The price of a measure of Egyptian wheat soared from seven or eight drachmas to several thousand drachmas.

Faced with unrest, Claudius also found it difficult recruiting men to join the army. Married men as well as many single young men were more interested in settling down and living a normal family life than being loyal party members ready to offer their lives in any war.

Faced with turmoil and revolt, Claudius banned marriages in hopes of building a strong army of single men for his empire's many wars.

Nonetheless Romans held to their beliefs on the value of marriage. One man to confront the emperor's policy of banning marriage was Bishop Valentinus, a physician, a priest and a rebel against oppression.

There are many stories of who this man really was. The only verification of his existence has been relics discovered and being held by the Roman Catholic Church.

The trouble is that there are relics found in Ireland lying in a casket held at Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, and also relics found in a casket held at the Blessed St. John Duns Scotus in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Catholic Church recognizes three Valentines, including an obscure priest in Africa. But the flowering of the day of love focuses on the Bishop of Interamna.

Defying Claudius, Valentinus continued to marry couples in secret until he was discovered, arrested and jailed. The story goes that many young people came to the prison to see the priest after his arrest and being denied entrance, cheered Valentinus from outside the walls of the prison.

But the story goes further. It is said that one of the guards of the jail let his daughter visit Valentinus in his cell.

Valentinus was not, she found, depressed by his incarceration. In fact, the story goes, he fell in love with the daughter, who was blind. Using his powers as a physician, it is said, he cured her affliction.

His healing treatment was regarded as a miracle at that time, at a time when many successful cures could be viewed as miracles.

But today it's regarded as just part of the legend which grew around Valentinus, a very ordinary doctor but with an exceptionally compassionate heart.

There were no pardon for his goodness, or his skills as a physician and scientist. Instead with a note to his beloved saying, "Love from your Valentine," he was beheaded Feb. 14, 269 A.D.

Later he was honored with sainthood and monks today say that the true message of St. Valentine's Day is that martyrdom is the highest form of love.

Some two centuries later, the church used St. Valentine to draw the young of the church away from the erotic fiesta devoted to the god Lupercus.

On that date in mid-February, men and women would draw names for their partner for the year for fun and games, often sexual. The church, however, decided to have them draw the names of saints, and spend the year emulating the saintly virtues.

That quickly faded and the practice of drawing lots for partners returned, but with more chaste intent.

Charles, duke of Orleans, is credited with starting the written Valentine. While imprisoned in 1415, he wrote love poems to his wife.

In modern times, some feel that they express the greatness of their love by giving their sweethearts the biggest box of chocolates.

And then there will be thousands of dollars spent on restaurants that offer a special Valentine's menu, drinks and snacks.

This large-scale love fest celebration is something that is taken for granted in the United States but in other places in the world people have a different view of this day. At least some governments do.

Last year in India the northern Uttar Pradesh state banned Valentine's Day. The right-wing leader Bal Thackeray said, "What is this Valentine's Day and who brought this Western craze, which is alien to our culture?"

Thackeray, a local politician, is leader of western Maharashtra state's opposition Shiv Sena party.

The Shiv Sena also objected to any kind of exchange of Valentine's Day cards and gifts. It encouraged activists to demonstrate outside restaurants and clubs that indulged in Valentine celebrations. They justified their ban by calling the annual festivities to celebrate love "indecent."

By doing so, however, they may miss another benefit of Valentine's Day.

Penny Kris-Etherton, professor of nutrition at Penn State University, and Carl L. Keen of the University of California have reviewed more than five dozen scientific studies on the benefits of chocolate and conclude it can benefit the heart in somewhat of a Catch-22 manner.

Chocolate, like tea, apparently is rich in a substance called flavonoids, which has an antioxidant effect and could lead to better blood circulation if consumed in enough quantities. The flavonoids are found in plant food and chocolate originates from the plant cocoa.

The studies the researchers reviewed on tea found that one cup of tea brewed for two minutes contains about 172 mg of flavonoids. About 150 mg of flavonoids can give an immediate benefit to the circulatory system, triggering an anti-platelet action that could diminish clotting in the arteries which could cause thrombosis.

But the researchers point out that the commercialized chocolate that we encounter in the stores today cannot be characterized that simply. The chocolate varies too widely in flavonoid content and has too much fat and sugar.

Kris-Etherton and Keen say for the same amount of flavonoid you'd receive in 3.5 cups of tea, which would give continuing benefit, you would need to eat 4.5 ounces of almost pure chocolate, or about 125 grams, to get 500 milligrams of beneficial flavonoids.

That's a couple of your favorite candy bars a day. And with that regime you'd probably be fighting a dramatic weight gain, increasing the size of those "love handles."

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Book of the Week: Crazy Love

By Shirley Saad

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- If you never know what to offer your loved one for Valentine's Day, "Crazy Love" by David Martin is the perfect gift. (Simon & Schuster, $23.00, 284 (fabulous) pages, release date: Feb. 14, 2002.)

Wrap it in paper with "I love you" printed all over it and give it with a kiss. You'll understand why after reading this book.

Readers familiar with the work of David Martin, author of "Lie to Me" and "The Crying Heart Tattoo," will know what to expect. For those of you who have never read anything by this author, you are in for a treat.

The greatest compliment one can pay a writer is to say, "I couldn't put it down, I didn't sleep all night, I just had to keep on reading." This is what happened to me. I picked up the book at 11 p.m., after a very tiring day, planning to read a few pages before going to sleep, and I was still reading at 3:30 a.m. I did not put the book down until I had finished it.

From the very first page, I was both horrified and mesmerized. Horrified because of the graphic description of an animal being tortured, but mesmerized because of the way the words flowed effortlessly, almost magically, weaving their spell, so that no matter how disturbing or upsetting the narrative, I just kept going on.

"Quickly now, Scrudde, the shorter fatter man, grabbed up a pitchfork and stuck the cow's flank. Bear's mouth dropped at the sudden cruelty of it and he once again saw movement -- the cow stretching its neck and raising its muzzle at being impaled -- before hearing the cow's sound, a sad trumpet on this empty-stage, frost-chilled April morning. Bear exited his truck and crossed the fence.

More than a fence was crossed of course. To enter that pasture was one of those decisions fat with fate, leading to mayhem. But even if he'd known it at the time, Bear still would've crossed that fence: he was a dangerously uncomplicated man; on occasion he was inevitable."

Well, it was inevitable to keep on reading. Martin is so good at descriptions that the most unlikely characters suddenly seem like real people standing there, daring you to either love them or hate them. And the crazy romance between Katie and Bear is the most touching, genuine love story I've read since "Tim" by Colleen McCullough.

"Crazy Love" is an appropriate title because it describes the quality of their love for each other, but also the unlikeliness of two people, so different from each other, meeting and falling in love.

Bear, as his nickname suggests, is a huge man, a farmer with a gentle nature who has a special gift with animals. Katie is a career woman, a city girl come to a small Appalachian town to recover from a devastating illness. They meet in peculiar circumstances and their adventures become more and more strange as their unusual love affair develops.

There are moments of wry humor, and moments of intense compassion, chapters that will make you wonder how humans can be so cruel to each other and to defenseless animals, and passages of absolute beauty. Bear will get to you, as he did to Katie, and there will be moments when you will want to reach up and kiss him, the way Katie did when she first met him.

They fill a void in each other's life and when Katie tells Bear she loves him, he says, "I ain't never heard it said to me before there was you."

"What's that sweetie?"

"I love you."

She pressed her cheek against his wet broad chest and told this man again what he'd never heard in thirty-two years of life, I love you. Bear drank it in like a man knee-deep in a river as Katie said it over and over again, I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm counting them, he told her, and I'll let you know when you reach a million."

Their dialogue rings true and is touching without falling into sentimentality. The strength of their love and their commitment to each other are so well portrayed, the emotions so raw, that by the time I reached pages 266-67, the tears were streaming down my face.

The cast of characters is wonderful, from the horrible Scrudde (pronounced like Hud, unless you'd had business dealings with him, and then you pronounced it like screwed) who mistreats his calves, to the vet, Doc Setton, who encourages and abets Bear and Katie in their mission to rescue stray and mistreated animals.

There are even more wonderful animals: the German shepherds POTUS and Jamaica, the Red Cow, Old Bob, Veep, and many more. They will tug at your heartstrings and make you want to go out and adopt a puppy on the spot.

This novel is not for the faint-hearted. The descriptions of the torture endured by some of the animals had me squirming and left a lasting impression. But the pain inflicted on Bear by his father was even worse.

However, the novel ends on a note of hope, and love, and compassion. If you read only one novel this year, make it "Crazy Love." You won't regret it.

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Valentine stress for Japan's single women

By Shihoko Goto

UPI Senior Business Correspondent

For many single women in Japan, Feb. 14 is a day of high anxiety.

Unlike the United States or Europe, where members of the fairer sex expect to be wined and dined by their sweethearts, Valentine's Day in Japan is the only day that actively encourages women to take the initiative to declare their love for someone of the opposite sex.

From pre-teen girls to unattached thirtysomething women alike, it's a day to give a carefully chosen, attractively wrapped gift of gourmet chocolates to someone they have admired from afar. And if she's really sweet on him, the present will be a box of handmade and home-wrapped chocolate truffles, or perhaps an assortment of beautiful home-baked chocolate biscuits and cake. The aim is to capture the heart and mind of the object of affection, and in case he is such a great catch that he ends up attracting more than one gift, it's always best to give him a unique present. And what could be better than a labor-intensive delight that could show off the woman's culinary abilities?

So the challenge of preparing the ultimate Valentine's gift is hard enough, and the pressure is on to give a tasteful -and tasty- present to The One.

But working women face another problem on the day that celebrates love.

For them, it is a day they must abide by the unwritten rules of corporate Japan to ensure social harmony. For on Valentine's Day, they come under pressure from their male colleagues to provide so-called obligation chocolates, or "giri-choco." So the day supposedly dedicated to professing undying love to one's chosen sweetheart actually ends up being a day of chocolate-giving at the office.

Women will show up to work on Feb. 14, with a bag full of individually-wrapped "giri-chocos" for their colleagues and bosses, costing around 500 yen ($3.80) per head.

Bear in mind that Japan has never been a big chocolate-eating nation, it's a major boon for the country's confectioners. According to the International Cocoa Organization, the average Japanese gobbles just over 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) of chocolate a year, compared to 4.6 to 4.8 kilos consumed by Americans. Europeans, however, are the world's biggest chocoholics by far, munching through anything from 7 to 10 kg per person each year.

Yet on Feb. 14, Japan possibly goes through more chocolate than any other country in the world as women are obliged to buy chocolates, effectively for the whole office. Since Valentine's Day was marketed as a day for giving chocolate in Japan by a domestic candy-maker in 1958, nearly 60 percent of Japan's chocolate sales are made around that day.

Japanese chocolate makers have the working Japanese woman to thank for those soaring sales.

Never mind that she might hate her boss, or loathe the smarmy colleague sitting next to her, who might misconstrue a present from her as actually having an amorous meaning, in spite of the emphasis on the obligation part of the gift. All of her male co-workers will receive a little chocolate gift for her on the day, and a woman in a large-sized office could give up to 30 presents.

Over the years, many companies have actively encouraged workers to stop the practice of obligatory chocolate-giving, particularly as many employees face harsher times amid a stagnant economy. Still, if one woman in the office decides to break the moratorium and give out chocolates, then her fellow female co-workers feel they too must dole out sweets to sweeten up the men.

There is, however, sweet justice in the end for women and their chocolate-buying binge.

Ever eager to cash in on a sales gimmick, Japanese retailers started promoting White Day several years ago, which falls on March 14. A month after the men receive their chocolate gifts, they are expected to reciprocate by giving back a gift to each woman who had given him a present.

The catch is that the men are obliged to give back a present that is at least three times more expensive than the chocolate they received, known as "sanbai-gaeshi". So a woman can expect at least a threefold return on her chocolate investments.

In fact, if a man fails to reciprocate a gift that is not at least three times more expensive than the chocolate he received, his reputation in the office will plunge among the female co-workers as a cheapskate.

So while chocolate sales soar in February, demand for scented candles, pot pourri, scarves, and other small luxury items shoots up in early March as the men brave stores to stock up for White Day.

The question this correspondent has is, would her male colleagues still like her to keep to the Japanese tradition and have her give them a chocolate present on Valentine's Day?

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Viagra OK for some men with ill heart

ROCHESTER, Minn., Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Good news for Viagra users -- this Valentine's Day your heart might go pitter-patter for that special someone, but a new study says it won't stop cold.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester have found the blockbuster impotence drug Viagra could safely be used among men with stable heart disease. Led by Dr. Patricia Pellikka, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, the study looked at 105 men, average age 66, with coronary artery disease and erectile dysfunction.

Each patient underwent two exercise tests on a reclining bicycle. The exercise test was given an hour after patients were randomly assigned to take a placebo or Viagra and then repeated one to three days later.

Researchers used ultrasound imaging to monitor the heart's activity during the exercise stress tests and to measure the effects of Viagra on the heart rate and blood pressure. They found a slight drop in blood pressure among Viagra users while they were at rest, but no changes to their heart rate.

Angina, a type of chest pain caused by a lack of oxygen to the heart, developed in 69 patients who took Viagra and 70 patients who took the placebo.

The findings indicate there were no significant differences between the two groups, researchers report in the Feb. 13 issue of Journal of the American Heart Association.

"I think it should help reassure people that Viagra isn't likely to increase heart attack risk with patients who have (stable) heart disease," Pellikka told United Press International. However, she added, the study "is not large enough to absolutely predict cardiac events."

Heart disease is one of the most common ailments among American men, and impotence affects an estimated 30 million. The two conditions are linked since they both involve deterioration of blood flow through the blood vessels.

Viagra, manufactured by pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer Inc., has been the top-selling drug in the United States since its debut in 1998. Since it hit the market, numerous reports have surfaced about Viagra users dying of heart attacks.

This study was funded by the Mayo Clinic and the American Heart Association. Pfizer played no role in this study, Pellikka said, though the company has been informed "about the results and they're very happy, of course."

Though these findings might put some lovebirds at ease, heart experts still insist on caution, particularly for men taking nitrates, a medication that helps treat angina which can interact dangerously with Viagra.

"I think that it's important to understand the medication (Viagra), that it's very important for patients who have heart disease to be aware of interaction with nitrate," Dr. Sidney Smith, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chief science officer of the American Heart Association, told UPI.

These findings, Smith said, are "very much in accord with existing recommendations, that Viagra can be used safely by patients with stable heart disease. It should absolutely not be used in patients with low-level exercise capacity and on nitroglycerides."

(Reported by Katrina Woznicki in Washington)