Dating scams are a huge problem in this country. Countless people get their hearts broken and their life savings stolen by unscrupulous fraudsters. That's bad enough. But the case of West Australian woman Jette Jacobs is even more tragic.

She was found dead in a guest house in South Africa. It looks very likely that she was murdered. And the prime suspect is the Nigerian man she had been charmed by online, and was in that country to marry.

Mr Omokoh was the last person to see Ms Jacobs alive and told police he found her body. He has since disappeared.

Ms Jacobs, a widow who had six children, struck up an online relationship with Mr Omokoh three years ago and travelled to South Africa to meet him in 2010 before he proposed late last year. Over several years she sent $200,000 to Mr Omokoh and another man she met online, known only as Isaac.

The woman's family knew about the relationship and tried to stop her form travelling to Africa. But she wouldn't be talked around. It shows just how powerful a motivating factor the desire for love can be.

One interesting feature of politics in this country has been the development of the Australian Sex Party. Obviously they are against censorship of adult oriented material. But they're certainly not a one issue party. They support abortion, euthanasia, and the decriminalization of drugs. Not surprisingly they have been quite controversial.

They tend to be treated as a bit of a sideshow by the mainstream media. And their reputation seems to have had something to do with their problems running Google ads in a recent election. In that case, Sex Party president Fiona Patten claimed that they were being treated very differently to the Greens.

They certainly do attract some colourful characters. Comedian Sandy Gutman (aka Austen Tayshus) ran as a candidate for them not so long ago.

Feminist porn star Zahra Stardust is the latest candidate. She's running for Lord Mayor of Sydney. She obviously won't win, but it will be interesting to she how she fares.

While many of the other candidates aren't as socially liberal as she is, they still share several of her policies. This is because Sydney's inner city is dominated by trendy left-leaning greenies. Conservative Christian types barely get a look in.

Just recently there was a media frenzy in Japan over a young woman who killed three men she met on dating sites. And there has been another case of a woman killing a man she originally met the same way.

British woman Carol Kemp became involved with a man she met on a dating site, then knifed him to death when he tried to end the relationship.

A female public servant has just won her long battle to be compensated by the Government for injuries she suffered while having sex in a motel room in country NSW. Her argument, initially rejected but then accepted on appeal, was that the incident occurred while she was on a work trip and so her employer was liable.

This outcome is interesting not just because of its legal ramifications. There also seems to be a societal aspect: the lack of shame of the compensation claimant.

I can't imagine such a thing occurring a couple of decades ago. I suspect that any woman who suffered such a bizarre misfortune would not seek compensation simply because of the potential for embarrassment. But this woman had no such trepidation. Not only did she make the claim in the first place; she kept persevering with it even after initially losing the case!

It's clear that online fraud -- much of which is carried out on dating sites -- has been rising at an alarming rate. But the attitude of law enforcement about how it should best be combated shows just how widespread the problem now is:

The Australian Federal Police argue that, just as drivers on public roads are penalised if they don’t wear a seat belt, internet users should be punished if they don’t use antivirus software, firewalls and password changes.

If this remedy is made law, and people end up losing their "licences" to surf the net, one wonders what will be next. Perhaps demerit points for being drunk online as well?

As online dating continues continues to grow in popularity all across the globe, there are more and more cases of crimes being committed by people who met others on such sites. Reports of scams, stalkings, rapes and even murders appear regularly in the media.

These acts are overwhelmingly committed by men against women. But every now and then it's the woman who is the aggressor.

The latest example of this occurred in Japan. A young woman called Kanae Kijima has been convicted of murdering three men she met on dating sites. Not surprisingly her case has generated enormous publicity.