Speaking of the United Nations, what's up with IRIN News? The normally staid news service, a site run by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that covers important stories that don't usually see the light of day elsewhere, seems to really be spicing up its coverage of late.

Check out this spate of recent stories...

ZIMBABWE: Wives playing seductress for food:

Dereck Gurupira, 50, was bathing in the river near his home in Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province late one afternoon when he saw a woman on the opposite bank begin to undress, apparently oblivious of his presence.

Usually the women in Manicaland's Odzi district, about 55km northwest of the border town of Mutare, wash downstream in a more secluded part of the river, but after undressing completely the woman greeted him by name and then suggested to Gurupira that he should join her.

BENIN: Power cuts and risky sex:

With selective power cuts regularly plunging Benin's largest city, Cotonou, into darkness, Alain*, a young taxi driver, no longer has to worry about paying for a hotel room to have casual sex – a quiet corner on a dark street will do.

MALAWI: High hopes for female condom:

Malawian women have little say when it comes to condom use, but the government hopes that the recent launch of the female condom in the country could go some way in solving this age-old dilemma.

Not that we here at Passport mind, of course. When it comes to humanitarian news, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Throw the word "sex" into a post, and Google traffic is bound to follow. Still, one can't help but wonder whether someone over at IRIN is taking a mandate to "sex up" its coverage just a little too literally...