Vittorio Hernandez

Obesity has often been blamed for poor health of people, including higher chances of acquiring chronic ailments such as diabetes, hypertension and other illness that result in astronomical medical bills. However, in some cases, having a lot of body fat could turn out to be a blessing in disguise as what happened to a 33-year-old Chinese man identified only by his surname Yang.

The ASX is now up 5.81% in the last 14 days and October looks like it will be the third best month of the year, and well ahead of the average monthly rise in 2013 of 1.3%.

In US economic news, industrial production rose by 0.6pct in September, above expectations for a gain of 0.4pct. But the pending home index fell by 5.6pct to 101.6, weaker than the 0.1pct expected gain.

It is not only the giraffe riddle that is trending, in YouTube, videos like this one which has more than 1.5 million hits are being posted by thousands of young girls all over the world.

Do you remember that scene in the movie Mean Girls? Gender study experts are partly blaming it for the change in the way young girls dress for Halloween from scary to sexy.

South Korean tech giant Samsung just snagged a deal that would provide it with more global exposure. Samsung signed a $100 million deal with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to provide it with tablets and TV monitors for courtside use, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Following reports that the U.S. government eavesdropped on the phone conversations of 35 world leaders, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Berlin is considering setting up its own Internet system to prevent a repeat of foreign espionage.

Local participants showed few signs of doubt on Monday ahead of a busy week for market moving events. The ASX 200 has risen more than 4% this month, notwithstanding that result buyers continued to keep the upper hand over most on the session.

Apple's newest iPhone models, the 5S and the 5C, became available in Russian store shelves on Friday, Oct 25. However, Bloomberg notes that because of its high price tag, there is slim chance that it would be a hit among Russian consumers.

The gains are continuing, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up by 60pts or 1.1 per cent at lunch. With nine of the past ten sessions being up days, this makes it the second best winning streak for local shares of 2013. The gains are partly being fuelled by greater political certainty in the US (for now), Chinese manufacturing figures out last week and a better finish to the week for US equities on Friday.

On Sunday morning, a 6-year-old Australian girl died after a kangaroo hit the car windshield in west of Brisbane. She was with two adults and another child on a car traveling on the Warrego Highway at Kingsthorpe when their vehicle collided with the kangaroo at 3 am.

Areva, the French nuclear energy giant, inked an agreement with Mon-Atom, a state-owned company in Mongolia, to develop to uranium mines in the Gobi desert.

The Instagram war between U.S.-based Filipino radio talk show host DJ Mo Twister and actor and basketballer Ervic Vijandre, the suitor of Miss Philippines Universe Ariella Arida is far from over.

As we head into the last four trading days of October there are a few statistics that are starting to make me see a crest at the top of the hill for the ASX.

Social networking was so important to 17-year-old Aishwarya Dahiwal from Maharashtra, India, that when her parents prevented her from using her mobile phone and accessing Facebook, she hanged herself on Wednesday night.

In US economic news, orders for durable goods (goods with a life more than three years) rose by 3.7pct in September, ahead of expectations. But non-defence goods excluding planes fell by 1.1pct. Consumer sentiment fell from 77.5 to a 10-month low of 73.2 in October, below expectations for a result near 75.0. And wholesale inventories rose by 0.5pct in September with sales up 0.6pct - both above expectations.

The Sun released two solar flares on Friday, one of which was the most intense it could unleash.

In the early part of October, singer Madonna revealed in a magazine essay that she was raped at knifepoint in 1978 when she was new in New York City. If the incident also marked her first sexual experience, then the nude photos she made almost two years earlier at age 18 would fit into her first hit - Like a Virgin.

Mount Etna, the most active volcano in Europe, erupted on Saturday, creating a spectacular air show with its glowing lava. However, at the same time, the volcano also spewed a large ash plume over Sicily, briefly closing the airspace over the southern Italian island.

Apple claims to have shipped a total of 170 million units of iPad to date, implying it shipped about 15 million tablets in Q3. However, like the Cupertino-based tech giant's previous claim of selling 9 million units of the newly launched iPhone 5S and 5C on the first three days it appeared in stores, there are doubters.

India may have the largest number of PhD degree holders in computer courses and it may be the provider of a large number of IT tasks globally through the business process outsourcing industry (BPO), but its top official is old school.

Analysts have doubted the high number of glowing reviews for BlackBerry's newly released BBM app for iOS and Android because of the sheer number of almost identical wording and content of the reviews.

Pesky cats in the mood for sex are the bane of urban neighbourhoods, especially when they choose to make annoying noise to attract other felines, keeping many residents wide awake because of the ruckus created. However, in Southampton, Hampshire, what keeps residents awake are not cats, but the favourite meal of felines - fish. The Telegraph reports that resident who live near the waters are complaining of lack of sleep because of pulsating noise that begins at about 10 pm.

While all tech eyes are on the newly launched iPad Air and iPad Mini tablet of Apple, reality is there would be Apple fans and non-fans. The bigger number of tablet users, because of the sheer number of available models, are those run by Android OS. In the Android world, Google Nexus devices reign, based on the recently listing of two tech Web site wherein the Google Nexus 10 and Nexus 7 topped the list of best tablets.

We have all heard of teen girls or young women auctioning their virginity online for financial reasons. However, in Britain 19-year-old Clayton Pettet plans to lose his virginity in a London gallery with 50 to 100 live audience.

Occasionally, there are mums from hell. And one of them is Margarita de Jesus Zapata Moreno, 45, who is accused of pimping her 12 daughters' virginity for $200 each!

Local stocks went against the regional trend today which saw most of the leading indices lose ground. The improvement on Friday has meant that over the last 5 days the index has gained about 1.2%.

While many had written off BlackBerry when it admitted substantial losses due to its large inventory of unsold smartphones, the Waterloo, Ontario-based phonemaker appears to have made a successful comeback this week when it rolled out the BlackBerry Messaging app for Android and iOS phones.

There have been a number of encouraging signs for the bulls in the last 24 hours. The weak close on Wednesday as rising interest rates in China saw buyers retreat from stocks across the region has faded from memory and buyers have maintained the grind higher for the ASX200 this week, which has risen by 1.3% with several hours of trade remaining.