Jamelle Agbuis

As challenging as it might sometimes seem, shedding those excess pounds and keeping them off is not an impossible task.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is set to tow its grounded drilling rig in Alaska as soon as weather conditions are good enough to perform the operation. The Kulluk, the Shells's drilling rig, will be moved to a save harbor, according to detailed plans of the company.

HTC Sees its 4Q Profit Drop 90%

World Housing Markets Q3 2012: Europe in the Eye of the Storm

As more research is done regarding so-called "non-traditional" healthcare, doctors and scientists are rediscovering "old" treatments that are increasingly supplanting today's standard treatments for a number of conditions.

2012 December will be long remembered by luxury carmakers, including BMW AG, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and others, as they saw record luxury car sales in the U.S. market. BMW AG indeed preformed so good in the last month of the year as it saw an increase of approximately 39 percent for the period in the U.S., topping Mercedes-Benz in luxury car sales for 2012.

Transocean Ltd. agreed to pay as much as $1.4 billion to settle civil and criminal claims over Gulf oil spill in 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice informed on the 3rd of January. The offshore driller also conceded that its team was partly liable for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Latest data showed a surprising drop in activity in the UK services sector. The visible decline in the services sector in December is the first decrease in about two years. The fall raises fears that the UK economy might enter triple-dip recession.

The "Google generation" is in danger of losing its creativity, warns one of Great Britain's most successful inventor, because they tend to rely on the Internet for just about everything, which is putting them in danger of becoming "brain dead."

Patrick Dempsey's Global Baristas LLC informed that its bid for Seattle-based Tully's Coffee was accepted. Also Starbucks Corp. and Baristas Coffee Co. took part in a bankruptcy auction. The "McDreamy" Patrick Dempsey's company is to pay approximately $9.15 million for a small coffee chain.

Just when a full-blooded rally gets underway, the Fed comes out and spoils it! Last night (Aussie time) saw the release of the minutes to the Fed's December board meeting.

Graeme McDowell will play in this year's RBC Heritage and the RBC Canadian Open after joining the "RBC family".

The battle for the green and gold jersey will be hotly contested this January, with a host of reigning and former champions to line up in the women's events at the 2013 Mars Cycling Australia Road National Championships in Ballarat.

The Australian men's water polo team, the Aussies Sharks, have shaken off their holiday season cobwebs ahead of Friday's blockbuster Water Polo By The Sea game at Bondi Icebergs with a comfortable four goal victory over the International All-Stars at Balmain's Dawn Fraser Baths.

On December 28, 2012 Chinese national legislation was amended so that adult children are now required to visit their elderly parents otherwise they could be subject to legal ramifications. It has been reported that in China elderly parents are often neglected and even abandoned by their working children.

Impact of the APOE Alzheimer's risk variant on the newborn brain. Blue clusters show decreased brain volumes in newborns with the risk variant. Similar decreases in this brain area, which is involved in memory, are seen in adults with the same variant.

Rory McIlroy has admitted he could skip the Olympics in Rio to avoid conflict over which country he chooses to represent.

A study published recently in the Journal of Nutrition adds to the growing scientific evidence that when expecting mothers eat fish often, they are giving their future children a boost in brain development even though they are exposing their children to the neurotoxin, methyl mercury, present in fish.

Preemptive cognitive training-an early intervention to address neuropsychiatric deficiencies-can help the brain function normally later in life, a team of researchers has found.

Yesterday, Dan promised to write more about lead and the deflationary prophecies of John Exter. I've muscled in on today's Daily Reckoning, and will be here tomorrow too, so make sure you read the weekend edition for Dan's follow up from yesterday.

Intuition was telling me something was going on these past few days (of 2012) in the gold market. Our investment team was watching gold and gold stocks take a tumble for no obvious reason.

The RBA's interest rate cuts don't seem to be working. It's a bit player in the global currency war, and Australia's economy will suffer the consequences. Manufacturing's woes are well known. But the RBA's move to ultra-low interest rates was supposed to perk up Australian house prices, and therefore the housing market.

In an effort to help parents "take the guesswork out of when to worry" about their children and rush them in for screening and treatment, researchers are ready to tell you that your tantrum-throwing kid is mentally ill.

Without fanfare, President Obama has reauthorized a law that allows the U.S. government to conduct surveillance on overseas activities of suspected spies and terrorists.

On the 3rd of January, Starbucks Corp. informed that it would launch its first café in Vietnam in February 2013. The decision comes as the Seattle-based company is trying to expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Rory McIlroy is said to have raised his appearance fee to a whopping $2 million after his most recent major-winning exploits.

Teen sexting - when teenagers text nude photos of themselves to each other - is coming into the crosshairs of psychiatry. Soon these hormone driven youth will be candidates for big pharma's ever expanding roundup of humankind.

When it's midnight and there's no one around to kiss, you take what you can get. Your editor has always employed this strategy on New Year's Eve.

Everything has its beginning and its end, so has the netbook. Netbook is fading away in the beginning of 2013. Undoubtedly, the end of netbooks marks the end of the certain era in tech world.