TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

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Rhinos Get Giant Sun Bed for Better Skin

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch zoo is giving its rhinoceroses sun bed treatment to make up for the lack of sunlight during the cold gray winter months. Rhinos Jennifer and Petra spend up to 20 minutes at a time using their custom built four-meter long sun bed.

The rhinos, who are 32 and 23 years old, need sunshine and regular wallows in a mud pool to keep their skin healthy, biologist Wybren Landman at Emmen zoo in the northern Netherlands said on Friday.

But in winter, when temperatures often dip below zero, the mud pool is far too cold and they are kept in a stable.

"Their skin was beginning to look a bit flaky and not uniformly gray anymore. They did not have this problem in the summer, so we decided to substitute the sun and ordered a custom built sun bed," Landman said.

Rhinos are particularly prone to flaking skin as they get older. Infrared sessions of up to 20 minutes and much shorter bouts in ultraviolet rays will help the their skin blood circulation and provide vitamins, Landman said.

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Couples Brace for Another Kiss-In Record

MANILA (Reuters) - Couples in the Philippines hope to break a record set last year for a mass kissathon on the eve of Valentine's Day.

About 5,300 kissing couples in Manila smooched their way into the Guinness Book of World Records in February 2004, surpassing the previous world best set in Chile by 4,445 pairs the previous month.

"A million kisses, a million heartbeats and probably a million people falling in love for the second time around," toothpaste-maker Unilever Philippines, one of the organizers of the event, said.

"The ambition is to beat last year's record," a spokeswoman said.

Organizers of the Close-Up Lovapalooza 2 festival said the kissathon would take place along a 2-km (1-mile) stretch of boulevard beside Manila Bay and in three other big cities.

Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, who led last year's event, is expected to spearhead this year's kissing festival at the stroke of midnight Saturday.

"Couples will be asked to kiss again for 10 seconds, but if they want to extend, so be it," said a member of Atienza's office.

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State Seeks to End 'Power Hour' Drinking

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Lawmakers in North Dakota, alarmed by at least one death linked to the practice, are moving to close bars to newly legal drinkers who try to down 21 shots in the first hour after they turn 21.

Under legislation working its way through the state Legislature, people turning 21 would not be able to buy a drink in the state until at least 8 a.m. on their birthdays.

That would end the tradition of "power hour" drinking under which some of those turning 21 hit a bar at midnight on their birthdays and try to down 21 shots before the bar closes an hour later. The practice is blamed for the death of a man last year.

Democratic State Sen. Joel Heitkamp told Reuters on Thursday: "It's not the norm, but it is happening in North Dakota. What we have, so to speak, is people who turn 21 at midnight and have one hour in their eyes to accomplish a whole day's work. The sad thing is they don't have friends covering their back."

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Postcard for the Fuehrer or Current Occupant

BERLIN (Reuters) - German postal services are still delivering post for Adolf Hitler, even though the Nazi dictator has been dead almost 60 years.

German media reported that a postcard addressed to "Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, Reichstag, German Parliament, Berlin, Germany," was sent from an undisclosed location in England.

A spokeswoman for the Bundestag lower house of parliament confirmed on Thursday that the dictator's card had arrived at its intended destination. She declined to give any further details.

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Why Not Just Put Hannibal Lecter on the Label?

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Wine labeled with a photo of brutal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was pulled from shelves in the Canadian province of Manitoba this week after complaints from the local Ukrainian community, a spokeswoman for government-owned liquor stores said.

The sherry and port from the Massandra winery in Ukraine featured a photo on the bottles' labels of Stalin seated with former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The wine commemorated the Yalta Conference, held at a castle near the winery 60 years ago this week, where the leaders decided on the shape of Eastern Europe after World War II.

"I don't want Stalin to be forgotten. I want him to be remembered for exactly what he was: a genocidal mass murderer," said Lubomyr Luciuk of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

The Yalta agreement forced hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans living in Western Europe to return to countries controlled by the former Soviet Union, where many were killed, Luciuk said.

"I don't think anyone in Canada would welcome a Hitler Riesling or a Stalin sherry or a Pol Pot port or a Mao Tse-tung merlot," Luciuk said.

About 3 percent of Canadians, or more than 1 million people, identify themselves as ethnic Ukrainians in census surveys. About 40,000 Ukrainian political refugees moved to Canada after World War II, Luciuk said.

The Manitoba Liquor Control Commission had ordered 14 cases of the wines, priced at C$38 ($30.60) a bottle, but only six bottles had been sold before the wines were pulled, said Diana Soroka, a spokeswoman.

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Hot and Bothered Spiders Head Indoors

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australians have been warned: angry arachnids are heading indoors.

Scientists say Australia's hot, humid and wet summer has had a bad effect on common, but potentially deadly, redback spiders.

Normally found in outdoor sheds, gardens and under roofs, the cantankerous creepy-crawlies are seeking shelter indoors in tropical Queensland and New South Wales, two of Australia's biggest states.

"There has been rain and winds which push falling leaves into the roof gutters, destroying their web. This leaves them no other option but to come down into the house," said Queensland Museum arachnologist Robert Raven.

Bites have been recorded at a rate of one a day, he said.

A female redback's bite usually results in sweating and pain, which slowly builds to the point of being unbearable.

No deaths from redback bites have been reported in Queensland since the introduction of an anti-venom.

The redback is one of the most common of Australia's seemingly endless supply of poisonous pests. A distant cousin of the American black widow, it is distinguished by a red stripe on the shiny black, thumbnail-sized body of the larger female.

Scientists describe the redback's existence as "amoral" because of their unique mating behavior in which males give themselves up to the deadly females to be killed and eaten after mating.

"It's all about foreplay. If he doesn't have the moves, she's not going to be interested," said Sydney Taronga Zoo exhibit supervisor Warrick Angus, who said he kept a redback as a pet.

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Guidelines for Commercial Space Travel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Aspiring space tourists got some proposed guidelines on Thursday from the U.S. government, including advice to get a physical exam before traveling and to accept the risks involved by signing a form.

The draft Federal Aviation Administration guidelines also suggest operators of reusable space ships should inform their passengers of the vehicle's safety record and provide safety training before the launch, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said.

"We're not going to lose sight of safety," Mineta said in a speech at his department's Commercial Space Transportation Conference. "These guidelines for space tourism respect that this is uncharted territory," allowing operators "to determine the best way to meet the standards."

There is another set of draft guidelines for space flight crews, Mineta said.

Pilots of reusable launch vehicles would need to hold an FAA pilot certificate, meet medical standards and be trained to operate their vehicle so it will not harm the public, with emphasis on responding to abort scenarios, emergency operations and procedures that direct the vehicle away from the public in the event of a problem during flight, he said.

Mineta said he recognized the early stage of the commercial space flight industry and encouraged feedback on the guidelines.

The White House unveiled a new policy on commercial space flight in January, seeking to offset the decline in demand for commercial launches by capitalizing on interest in public space travel, among other ventures.

The policy was announced three months after the privately funded SpaceShipOne completed two sub-orbital flights into space with a person aboard, setting a new altitude record and winning a $10 million prize designed to spur commercial space travel.

Entrepreneur Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, has announced plans to make space travel as ordinary as a Caribbean cruise.

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Saudi Morality Police See Red Over Valentine Roses

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's morality police are on the scent of illicit red roses as part of a clampdown on would-be St Valentine's lovers in the strict Muslim kingdom.

The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Saudi Arabia's powerful religious vigilantes, have banned shops from selling any red flowers in the run-up to February 14.

Florists say the move is part of an annual campaign by the committee -- whose members are known as "mutawwaeen" or volunteers -- to prevent Saudis marking a festival they believe flouts their austere doctrine of "Wahhabi" Islam.

"They pass by two or three times a day to check we don't have any red flowers," said a Pakistani florist in Riyadh's smart Sulaimaniya district. "Look, no red. I've taken them all out," he said pointing to a dazzling floral collection covering every color of the rainbow except one.

Saudi Arabia's purist version of Islam recognizes only two religious occasions a year -- the Muslim feasts after the fasting month of Ramadan and the Haj pilgrimage.

Celebration of the Islamic New Year or the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, common in other Muslim countries, is frowned upon in Saudi Arabia.

Valentine's Day, or the "Feast of Love" in Arabic, is beyond the pale in a country where women must cover themselves from head to toe in public and be accompanied by a male guardian.

"For the last week, we've had no red in the shop," said Ahmed, a flower shop manager. "You can't even have red cards."

Despite the prohibition, demand for the banned roses has been strong and unofficial business was booming, Ahmed said.

"Wait 10 minutes," he told one customer as an assistant slipped into the shadows to collect a bouquet of crimson flowers. At 10 riyals ($2.70) each they were double the usual price. "They would put us in prison for this," he smiled.

Another customer asked if he could deliver 30 red roses to Riyadh's diplomatic quarter, a potentially tricky mission which meant crossing a tight police security cordon. "No problem," Ahmed said. "That's the regular police, not the mutawwaeen."

The government-funded mutawwaeen patrol the streets of Saudi Arabia, particularly Riyadh in the Wahhabi heartland, ensuring women are covered and five daily Muslim prayers are observed.

Shopkeepers who fail to shut down for half an hour during each prayer risk a night in jail if they are discovered.

Despite government calls for them to show greater leniency, and some recent efforts to improve their own image, the bearded volunteers are not universally popular.

"The mutawwaeen are just backward," Ahmed complained. "It's the Saudi women who want these roses anyway."

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Did the Teacher Say to Put Your Tongue in My Mouth?

SEATTLE (Reuters) - There's more to a kiss than meets the lips, as couples are learning at a kissing school in Seattle.

Psychotherapist Cherie Byrd, 56, got the idea for teaching kissing classes while dating a man who was a horrible kisser.

"Yuck. He was clumsy, unskilled and half-hearted," Byrd said. "I told him if he wanted the relationship to continue he had to let me teach him to kiss."

The boyfriend didn't last, but Byrd, a self-described "luscious kisser," said that gave her the idea to teach the art and craft of kissing to other couples. Since 1998, more than 500 couples have paid $275 to learn Byrd's secrets for giving or receiving a passionate kiss.

On a typical class day, up to a dozen couples create "love nests" with sleeping bags and overstuffed pillows on the carpeted floor of the classroom.

Each class begins with foot rubs, back-to-back dancing and tender kisses on the hand. Students slowly graduate to neck nibbles, ear exploration and finally lip locks.

As Byrd guides couples through exercises, such as kissing only the bottom lip or licking an ear, soft music plays. In a calm, breathy voice she tells them to "tease, surrender and risk" touching their partner in ways they've never tried before.

Most are married and in their late 30s to mid-50s. Some couples have come from as far away as Africa, Korea and cities all over the United States, Byrd said.

Byrd's school, simply titled "Kissing School," appears to be the only one of its kind, although there are Web sites that offer kissing tips and techniques. Several books also cover the subject, including one by Byrd.

"We're basically clueless," Byrd said. "It's more than a smashing of lips." Byrd says that more important than technique is the connection between two people.

"It's hard to truly connect with your beloved in our society because we're in such a hurry," she explained. "Multi-tasking leads to sorry, sloppy smooches."

While most students at Seattle's Kissing School are couples, singles are also welcome to take classes, provided they don't mind kissing total strangers.

Gary Getz and Lorrie Clemens, married for nine months, flew from their home outside Palo Alto, California to Seattle to attend a kissing school on Saturday.

"It was Lorrie's idea to take the class," Getz said. "But I certainly benefit from her interest."

Getz said he resisted his wife's suggestion of going to a kissing school at first. And after completing the day-long class, he reported that he was somewhat disappointed.

"As a guy, I thought it would be more technical," Getz explained, "The put your hand here and pucker up this way kind of thing."

But he added quickly, "It was very enjoyable."

Other than an occasional, muted "yes" coming from the couple in the corner of the room, there was no conversation until the end of the kissing exercises. Each partner was then asked to rate the other's kiss on a scale of one to 10. One is "not so good" while 10 is a kiss that "sweeps you off your feet." After a brief discussion, the couples went at it again to try to improve their scores.

Getz and Clemens rated each other's kisses at 9.9. "We want to keep on practicing," Clemens said.

The instructor's top tip for creating a kiss that is satisfying and sensual is to slow down. "Men in particular rush through kisses and let their minds wander too much," Byrd said. "A kiss is really a gift of your heart. It's your energy transferred to another person's body."

Although the class is very intimate, Byrd has never had couples go too far with their kisses. The room, in an old school building, is well lighted and not the most comfortable place to get carried away, even with the fluffy pillows and blankets.

Only one couple failed the class in Byrd's opinion. "One guy thought he knew everything and didn't need any lessons," Byrd said. "I feel for his poor wife."

As couples left Saturday's class, hair tousled and in search of lip balm, Byrd went home to an empty house. The kissing school teacher is not married and at the moment doesn't have a boyfriend.

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S. Africa Gorillas Meet for Valentine's Rendezvous

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - It wasn't the romantic Valentine's Day rendezvous the South African public eagerly anticipated, but zoo officials hope a newly matched gorilla pair can still hit it off.

Lisa the gorilla met her new partner Makoko, a gorilla brought from Germany, for the first time Monday after he spent 45 days in quarantine in an enclosure next to hers -- to give them time to sniff each other out.

And while there were no visible sparks at their first encounter, the two have shown signs of mutual attraction.

"They've acknowledged the presence of each other, they've been eating their breakfast. They've been sitting outside in the sun together. For us it's been an extremely successful Valentine's Day," said Johannesburg zoo curator Philip Cronje.

"I think that's what everybody's here to expect. They want to see them cuddling. It's Valentine's Day -- gorillas must cuddle. Only problem is we're working with animals. But I'm sure they will," he said as journalists and curious members of the public crowded outside the gorilla pen to watch.

Lisa has been single since her previous celebrity partner Max died of old age last year. Max rose to fame in 1997 when he confronted a gunman who leapt into his enclosure while fleeing police.

Johannesburg zoo then found Makoko -- a 19-year-old prime specimen from Germany's Munster zoo who arrived in November.

With Lisa being 14 years Makoko's senior, there is only a slim chance of the two mating. And if that does not happen, the they will simply be companions.

Cronje said the zoo hoped to find Makoko two younger females with which to produce offspring -- vital for one of Africa's endangered species.

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Hungry Man Holds Up Store, Demands Sushi

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man pulled a knife in a convenience store early Sunday morning and threatened to kill himself unless he was given a meal of the choicest sushi.

The 68-year-old unemployed man barged into the store in the western city of Osaka after first setting fire to his nearby apartment, police said Monday. Newspapers said the man claimed he couldn't eat because his state benefit payments had been stopped.

Police overpowered the man after about an hour, during which time he ate bananas and helped himself to alcoholic drinks and vitamin supplements. Police declined to say whether he got any sushi.

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Singaporeans Seek Chaste Valentine's Day

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - As Valentine's Day stoked the embers of romance worldwide, a group of Singaporeans began a campaign urging couples to curb their ardor and abstain from sex.

A Christian group launched Monday a week-long Abstinence Awareness Campaign on the island, which has one of Asia's lowest birth rates and has ranked for three straight years near the bottom of condom-maker Durex's survey of sexually active nations.

Nearly 200 volunteers from the Christian "Focus on The Family" group fanned out across the city-state, selling wristbands bearing the message "Worth Waiting For" and collecting pledges from teenagers to stay chaste until marriage.

"We hope that the street sales will raise awareness about abstaining from sexual acts and tell young people that they have what it takes to save themselves until they are married," said one organizer Joanna Koh-Hoe.

"We want to let them know that it is cool to save themselves for marriage," she said.

The campaign follows a rise in teenage abortions and an increase in HIV-AIDS infections among youths.

But some youth doubted the tactic will work even in a society as strait-laced as Singapore, whose government maintains strict censorship controls, including bans on magazines such as "Playboy" and where oral sex between men is a crime.

"I really doubt the effectiveness of this campaign," said 25-year-old Phillip Ng. "To have premarital sex or not is a lifestyle decision and wearing a band on your wrist for a day is not going to lead to a change in your mindset."

About 6,000 chastity bands have been sold at S$2 ($1.22) each and the proceeds will help fund the group's activities, such as a "No Apologies" workshop -- a four-hour course which urges youths between the ages of 13-20 to remain virgins.

Organizers said over 15,000 teenagers have attended the workshop and nearly 80 percent have signed a pledge not to have premarital sex.

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Berlin Shows There's No Business Like stuff Business

BERLIN (Reuters) - Pornography has been elevated to an art form as never before at the Berlin Film Festival, which has spotlighted the industry and its commercial success.

After the leading actress in last year's festival-winning film was hounded to tears by German tabloids when it emerged she had a history in hard-core, the Berlinale turned the controversy on its head by making stuff a centerpiece this year.

Several films focusing on sexual repression, especially in the United States, have drawn large and appreciative audiences in Berlin, one of the world's top festivals with a liberal tradition in a city governed by a popular gay mayor.

And not only is the topic a critical hit. stuff, driven by pay-television, the internet and DVDs, boasts annual revenues of over $10 billion, equal to Hollywood's mainstream output.

Journalists, film buyers and the public crowded into a theater Sunday to see a documentary, "Inside Deep Throat," about a history-making 1972 U.S. film featuring what has been described as "extreme fellatio" that made stuff mainstream.

"Deep Throat" was one of the most commercially successful films ever, grossing a estimated $600 million after costing $25,000 to make. In 2002, 11,000 stuff films were made, the documentary says, compared with less than 500 Hollywood films.

There are other Berlin films on sex, including an explicit documentary looking at gay stuff in Los Angeles and the sad lives of former stuff stars. There is also a competition drama about Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering U.S. sex researcher.

Young filmmakers attending the festival's "Talent Campus" were treated to an unusual seminar Sunday entitled "Directing Sex." French director Catherine Breillat gave a lecture on "ways of directing intimacy for the screen."

Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick, who like most Germans is not bothered by "Head-On" actress Sibel Kekilli's earlier stuff career, said examining sexual repression was not a special tribute to the German woman of Turkish origin.

"It's always good to talk about sex -- and to see it on the screen," Kosslick told Reuters. "'Kinsey' is about an enlightened man in sexually repressed America. 'Inside Deep Throat' shows what a business the film was and how people were ruined by it."

"DEEP THROAT" BROUGHT SEX OUT OF CLOSET

The documentary "Inside Deep Throat," which cost $1 million to make, was one of the most coveted tickets at the festival.

Journalists and buyers lined up for hours for a seat to its late night screening yet there were still inelegant battles at the entrance as the crowd rushed forward when the doors opened.

The documentary tracks the efforts of U.S. President Richard Nixon's government to ban "Deep Throat" on grounds it violated obscenity laws. It ended up making the film more popular and sparked a long debate on freedom of expression.

The film spawned the phrase "Deep Throat," used not only by comedians but also by journalists as the name of a high level source they relied on for their Watergate investigation -- which ultimately led to Nixon's resignation.

"We thought we were making a film about 1972 but as we were making it we realized it was also a film about the present," said co-director Randy Barbato after the screening.

"Sex came out of the closet for a while but it's back in the closet now," added co-director Fenton Bailey. "Americans are still very uncomfortable about sex. Even though it is everywhere it's also nowhere. America is sexually dysfunctional."

Barbato said American conservatives tended to speak more about "moral values" and against pornography in public, but demand and sales of stuff was highest in conservative states.

"There's so much hypocrisy," he said.

With a 1970s pop music soundtrack, "Inside Deep Throat" includes graphic scenes from the original with its 23-year-old star Linda Lovelace performing her unusual technique on Harry Reems, who plays a wacky doctor.

He was later convicted for conspiracy to transport obscenity across state lines.

Before "Deep Throat," which was made by a hairdresser named Gerard Damiano, pornographic films were usually limited to short 10-minute "loops" seen in clubs or backrooms of book stores.

"Deep Throat" was an hour and included a plot. Screened first in New York, its popularity spread amid attempts to ban it.

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Radio Duo Suspended After Burglary Stunt

LONDON (Reuters) - A British radio station suspended a presenter and producer Monday for staging a mock burglary of their boss's house while on air.

Rock music station Kerrang! said in a statement it had removed presenter Tim Shaw and producer Greg Pebble indefinitely following "an attempted on-air prank that went way far beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior."

The two men broke into the program director's home during their show last week and caused substantial damage including spray-painting obscenities on a wall.

"We took it too far. It was funny at the time but I have been getting grief off my wife ever since then," Shaw told Reuters, adding the prank was meant to be payback for a previous stunt.

"I just gauged somebody wrong. I gauged somebody as being a prankster, somebody I thought who was on my level doing wind-ups and stupid things but quite obviously not."

Kerrang!, based in Birmingham, central England, said in its statement the pair were suspended pending the outcome of an inquiry and legal considerations.

"Kerrang! 105.2 does not condone criminal behavior of any kind from staff or listeners," it said.

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Honey, Remember to Turn on the Rooster Booster...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Before leaving on vacation, a German couple set up a loudspeaker and timer with the sound of a crowing cock to blast their neighbors every morning.

After complaints, police in the northern town of Itzehoe obtained a warrant to enter the house and discovered the gear with the speakers aimed at the neighbors and rigged to a timer.

"The apparatus switched on between 2 and 4 o'clock in the morning and produced a cock crowing at an enormous volume. This would last for 20 minutes with breaks in between," police said.

Police confiscated the gear and charged the vacationers, who are still away, with bodily harm and disturbing the peace. The neighbors had no history of antagonism.

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Surprised Customer Says Penis Pills Don't Work

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A New Jersey man has filed a false advertising lawsuit against a maker of herbal penis enlargement pills, alleging the medicine does not fulfill its promises, the plaintiff's lawyer said on Monday.

Two similar cases, filed last year in Colorado and Ohio, accuse manufacturers of herbal dietary supplements, VigRx and Enzyte, of falsely claiming to be able to add substantial length and girth to a man's penis.

All three suits seek class action status and claim to represent more than 1 million total plaintiffs.

In the latest case, filed on Jan. 21 in New Jersey state court, plaintiff Michael Coluzzi claimed he paid $59.95 for a 30-day supply of Alzare pills but "experienced no increase in penis size," and then was unable to collect a promised refund from manufacturer Alzare LLC of Boca Raton, Florida.

Neither Alzare nor chief operating officer Scott Hammond, both named as defendants, could be reached for comment.

Coluzzi's attorney, Stephen DeNittis, said many men had been taken in by dubious claims that the product would add up to 3 inches (7.5 cm) to their penises by "very, very convincing" advertising, such as infomercials featuring doctors and stuff stars.

"Males, for whatever reason, may be susceptible because of what they feel they lack," DeNittis said. "It was so believable I confirmed with an expert (that the claims were false) before I filed the lawsuit. They said they had done medical studies proving that it works."

The ads for Alzare tablets, comprised of ginseng, yohimbe bark, L-arginine and other ingredients, guaranteed results within a week and claimed a 95 percent success rate in the more than 100,000 men who have used it, the suit said.

But last year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission saying the maker of Enzyte had not backed up its claims with science.

Although thousands of complaints have been registered with local government agencies and the Better Business Bureau, few lawsuits have been filed because the companies appear to be "judgment proof," DeNittis said.

"They don't have enough assets for plaintiffs to recover, and some of the defendants are fly-by-night -- they close up shop after they get sued," he said.

All three lawsuits claim that plaintiffs were unable to contact the companies for guaranteed refunds after spending hundreds of dollars for the penis enhancers.

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Twin Docs Accused of Switching IDs, Abusing Women

SEATTLE (Reuters) - An attorney has filed the latest in a series of civil lawsuits against twin physician brothers, accusing them of impersonating one another and sexually assaulting female patients in an obstetric-gynecology practice.

In a complaint filed in King County Superior Court by Seattle lawyer Harish Bharti, six female patients of Charles Momah said they were sometimes deceived into being seen, examined, operated on and sexually fondled by his twin, Dennis Momah, a general practitioner who is not certified in obstetrics and gynecology.

Charles Momah, who had gynecological practices in Burien and Federal Way, two suburban cities south of Seattle, pleaded not guilty last fall to criminal charges of rape, indecent liberties and insurance fraud. He has not yet been tried.

Bharti said the women, as well as others that he is representing in other lawsuits, had complained to a variety of authorities over several years about their treatment in Charles Momah's practice. However, for some time, no one seemed interested in investigating the complaints, Bharti said on Monday.

"I have heard them cry in my offices," Bharti said, "I tell you, it was an insult to these women. ... No doubt, nobody would listen."

Neither man could be contacted for comment. Phones at both of Charles Momah's practices have been disconnected.

The women assert that the two sometimes switched identities and assaulted them.

On some occasions the doctor they believed to be Charles Momah was jovial and talkative with little accent. He bore certain scars and other physical characteristics.

On other visits, the man they believed to be Charles Momah stuttered, had a heavy accent, and even appeared to be a different weight, claim the women who filed suit.

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Lovers Swap Valentines at Border Gap

MEXICALI, Mexico (Reuters) - Star-crossed lovers clasped hands, kissed and exchanged forbidden Valentine's Day cards on Monday through a gap in a fence on the heavily guarded U.S.-Mexico border.

The break in the barrier dividing Calexico, California, from Mexicali, Mexico, is a popular spot where Mexicans working stateside come to see and talk to their families back at home.

One of only a few spots in the towns and cities on the 2,000-mile border where people standing in either country can touch, the two-mile-long strip gains a special romantic charge on Feb. 14.

From early in the morning, courting couples, husbands and wives and lovers ambled up to the rust-flecked barrier, searching eagerly for loved ones emerging from cars and buses on the other side of the border.

"It's a romantic spot," Mexican stall owner Patricia Estrada said as she craned her neck to catch sight of a boyfriend on the U.S. side of the border. "We come here to see loved ones, and pass on messages."

Her boyfriend ambled up the fence sheepishly and the couple clasped hands. Estrada passed a note to him furtively so that U.S. Border Patrol agents posted nearby could not see.

Fifteen-foot (4.6-meter) tall metal bars are placed several inches-long barrier near Tijuana to the west, which will complete security along a strip running 70 miles from the Pacific into the desert.

Under orders to crack down on people passing notes and packets through the fence after a rash of recent arrests for drug trafficking, Border Patrol agents kept a watchful eye on the strip.

"I don't think they'll let us kiss today," young mother Monica Ramirez said as she waited for her husband Juan Carlos to appear on the Calexico side. "But just being able to see him and talk to him is so important."

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St. Patrick, the Smooth Operator

DUBLIN (Reuters) - He may have converted Ireland to Christianity, immortalized the shamrock and inspired some of the world's most raucous street parades, but Saint Patrick was also an astute operator, according to a new book.

The country's patron saint accepted land and jewels against the church's wishes to fuel his 5th century evangelizing mission and paid tributes to pagan chiefs to woo them to Christianity.

One of the world's best-known saints, Patrick, whose feast day is celebrated among Irish communities across the world on March 17, is normally portrayed as a humble servant who died in poverty after establishing Christianity in Ireland.

But he was quite willing to accept largesse along the way and the church authorities were not pleased, historian Rob Vance told Reuters.

"Letters were sent to him rebuking him for accepting gifts in that it was bringing the church into disrepute," Vance said.

Describing his new book, "Secret Sights II: Unknown Medieval Ireland," Vance depicted a religious market-place where tribal leaders gave St. Patrick land, women gave him jewelry and the saint himself had to offer gifts to smooth his way.

"This was quite popular at the time," he said. "People would gladly donate things to the church but it was difficult to keep track of this stuff and who got what."

Many myths cloud the view of Patrick, who was first taken to Ireland as a teen-ager when raiders kidnapped him from his Roman parents' British home and used him as a slave.

He escaped years later but returned to Ireland as a clergyman where legend has him introducing Christianity to the pagan island and banishing snakes. Historians dismiss both.

They say there have never been any snakes in Ireland and that there is evidence other Christians had attempted to convert the island before.

However, Patrick was an astute converter who attracted heathens by incorporating pagan imagery into Christianity, celebrating Easter with bonfires and placing a sun at the center of the cross to produce a Celtic cross.

But taking gifts did not make Patrick corrupt, Vance said: "As an individual he was a man of integrity: he was that rare somebody who genuinely had a Christian vocation."

Instead, Patrick played hard for 40 years to make Christianity work in a druid-dominated Ireland by targeting Irish Gaelic aristocrats, accepting the gifts that came with it, and preaching meekness and patience to the poor.

Vance, who likened the saint's evangelical travels through Ireland to a modern day rock tour, said he hoped his findings would begin a deconstruction of the myth surrounding the man.

"Most of what is supposed to be Patrick is 19th century propaganda. He was quite a rich man ... and running the show must have cost an awful lot of money," he said. "But he was not a hustler."

[AussieMark]

Court to Decide Fate of Hunting with Dogs

LONDON (Reuters) - The future of hunting with dogs in England and Wales could be determined Wednesday when the Court of Appeal rules whether the legislation used to ban it was valid.

Three of Britain's top judges, including Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, will rule on a challenge by Countryside Alliance campaigners that the Hunting Act, which comes into force Friday, is invalid.

The High Court had rejected the alliance's claim last month but gave the group permission to take their case to the Court of Appeal.

If the appeal court rules in the alliance's favor, the ban will be postponed, a prospect not unwelcome to the Prime Minister Tony Blair's government which fears rowdy pro-hunting protests could become part of the run-up to May's expected election.

The government rammed the controversial law through parliament last November with the rarely used 1949 Parliament Act, which fox-hunters claim is flawed.

A Countryside Alliance spokeswoman said Tuesday if they lose their case against Parliament Act, they could seek permission to appeal to the Law Lords but had ruled out lodging an injunction against the Hunting Act itself.

"We have an excellent legal team that have advised us that we have a strong case before the Court of Appeal," she said. "We are confident that we will be able to get this hunting act repealed, however long that takes."

Fox-hunting has been practiced in Britain for centuries but Blair made the banning of the sport -- on grounds of cruelty -- part of his 1997 election manifesto.

The alliance has also lodged papers at the High Court in a second case in which they claim that the human rights of the hunting fraternity are being breached by the ban. That case is not expected to be heard before April.