Vittorio Hernandez

If Jeane Napoles, the flamboyant and public attention-seeking daughter of Janet Lim-Napoles, tagged the pork barrel scam queen of the Philippines, is facing legal problems now, she could only blame herself and her selfie pictures.

While the phenomenal gay-themed Philippine soap opera My Husband's Lover ends Oct 18 with the male lovers, Vincent Soriano and Eric del Mundo, parting way and ending their relationship, the opposite is the case for Jun Lana, the creative director of the bekiserye. Lana and his lover, TV 5 Creative and Entertainment Head Perci Intalan, will become a married couple as they go through a same-sex wedding on Monday, Oct 14, in New York, Pep.ph reports.

On Friday, Computerworld IT blogger Richi Jennings wrote that reports came from China that the iPhone 5C is not selling well. He added that because of this development, production reportedly is being slashed by half, while the price of the unlocked device in the gray-market has plummeted to $425.

Two men deliberately ended their lives after they were involved in separate scandals.

Even before Miss Philippines Megan Young left for Bali, Indonesia to compete in Miss World 2013, Cory Quirino, the national director and franchise holder of Miss World Philippines, knew the coveted crown would go to the actress-turned beauty queen.

The approaching Typhoon Nari (local name: Santi) on Friday afternoon did not dampen the spirit of thousands of Filipinos who lined up on the main avenue of Makati City, the Philippines' business district, to have a glimpse of Miss World 2013 Megan Young in her Manila victory parade.

Miley Cyrus of the twerking fame broke YouTube records with her Wrecking Ball video. In September, her YouTube channel had 270.1 million views, industry site Tubefilter reported on Friday.

It certainly was an eventful end to the week, with stocks rising by 1.6 per cent by the close of trade, taking the gains for the week to a modest 0.44 per cent. The biggest catalyst for the improvement was the Republican Party putting forward a temporary six week increase in the debt ceiling to allow time for congress to negotiate on 2014 budget.

The US political jitters have settled somewhat, sending global markets sharply higher. Last night was the best one day session for American shares since December 2011, while the local market is having its best day in three months. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is up 1.6 per cent.

BlackBerry officials may be in a frenzied state trying to find a solution to their floundering business, but some employees of the phone manufacturer based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, possibly couldn't care less.

There is a possibility that Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro died not because he committed suicide but possibly due to auto-erotic asphyxiation. In plain language, that means masturbating himself to death.

Global media firm Thomson Reuters rolled out its Domestic Partners Eligibility policy in the Philippines. The policy recognises the live-in and same-sex partners of its employees as eligible for benefits under the company's healthcare plan, group life insurance and retirement plan.

Australia's unemployment in September may have gone down to 5.6 per cent from 5.8 per cent in August, but the drop was not a reflection of the change in federal leaders or an improvement in the economy.

Two sex offenders who live thousands of miles apart are supposed to face this week the consequences of their similar wrongdoings in the past of molesting male children.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Sydney University students are among the 9 awardees of the country's annual Ernie awards for sexism.

The key takeout from today's trade is that opportunistic buyers are not being bullied by the selling fraternity. In recent days the headlines from Washington have given sellers the edge although, they have only been prepared to chance their arm so far. The early session provide a good case study of this today.

Australian stocks are back in the red in early trade on Thursday, despite gains made on blue chip stocks in New York overnight. The US Dow Jones Index closed in positive territory after President Obama nominated current US Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke as Fed Chief when his term ends in January 2014. If endorsed by the Senate, Yellen will become the first female Federal Reserve Chair in the bank's 100 year history.

Microsoft just paid $100,000 to a hacker who successfully breached Windows 8.1 security. The hacker is James Forshaw, head of vulnerability research at Context Information Security.

The six member-nations of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) plan to ban the entry of gays by using medical tests to screen homosexual males.

The anticipated billionaire vs billionaire battle at the New South Wales Supreme Court between Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest did not happen on Wednesday. The reason is John Hancock, the estranged adult son of Australia's richest person, withdrew his nomination made by Mr Forrest as trustee of the $5-billion Hope Margaret Hancock Foundation to replace his mum.

Based on the estimated median wealth of $219,505, according to the Credit Suisse 2013 Global Wealth Report released on Wednesday, Australians are the richest people in the world.

Canadian Treasury Board President Tony Clement said the federal government would cite national security as reasons in scrutinising the potential buyer of Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry in case it would be a foreign company.

One of the more valuable aspects of the current market atmospherics is to see how the market performs when dealing with the headwinds being generated by US politics. Today, and not for the first time, the local index showed some mettle. Have been handed a poor finish on Wall St, the market started under duress, losing as much as 30 points in the first hour of trade. From that point however buyers slowly began to reel in the deficit. By the early part of the afternoon the market peaked at its bes...

The Australian sharemarket is down for the fourth straight day, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) down 0.1 per cent. The US government shutdown has entered day eight and we're only nine days away from the debt ceiling deadline (US will run out of cash to keep economy running unless ceiling raised).

In an obvious marketing ploy to make it appear that its newly released Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets are selling, Microsoft advised consumers to purchase the device now or face a shortage of the gadget.

Fox News is setting a trend in news room by ditching the desk in favour of large touchscreens. Beginning on Tuesday, the Fox staff was seen going over Facebook and Twitter news as they monitor breaking new, not on laptops, tablets or smartphones, but using 55-inch Microsoft touchscreens.

Recent developments in LA showed that acquiring HIV is one of the hazards of trade that male and female porn stars face when filming sex scenes in their flicks, as Cameron Bay and several other adult show performers found out via lab test results.

The legal battle between Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart, and her two estranged adult children, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, has moved from family feud to a higher level. It is now a billionaire versus billionaire galactic war.

Canada and Brazil are in a diplomatic stand-off over accusations by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff that Ottawa attempted to steal state secrets in 2012 from Brazil's mining and energy ministry.