The controversial Reproductive Health bill (RH bill) made it through the legislative mill after languishing for over a decade. On December 17, both the Senate and the House of Representatives separately approved it days after they made another historic vote on a similarly controversial sin tax measure. The Catholic church, a powerful group in the only Christian country in Southeast Asia, rabidly opposed the RH bill, which seeks to provide reproductive health services, including free contraceptives, to the poor who cannot afford them bill, while tobacco industry lobbyists failed to stop the tax measure. Both now await the final nod of President Aquino who has said he wants these signed into law before the Christmas break.

The units of the country's largest business group, San Miguel Corp., face a possible trading suspension if they miss to meet the yearend deadline for the Philippine Stock Exchange's rule on 10% minimum public ownership. This, after the Securities and Exchange Commission denied all requests for extension of the grace period to comply with the PSE's rule, which, according to officials, is "one of the governance initiatives that we believe will help democratize the ownership of listed companies and increase trading activity." Several companies already delisted, including those under businessman Manuel Pangilinan.

President Benigno Aquino III has signed Executive Order 120 creating the 15-member Transition Commission that will craft the Bangsamoro Basic Law, one of the key components of the roadmap for peace with Muslims in Mindanao. Members of the Transition Commission will be selected by the MILF and the government -- Moro Islamic Liberation From (MILF) will choose 8 while the government will choose 7. Separately, the parties have also been been working on related issues, including power-sharing, wealth-sharing, modalities and arrangement, and on normalization.

Voting 17-0, the Senate approved the Freedom of Information bill on 3rd and final reading on December 17. The Senate version of the FOI bill is formally called the People’s Ownership of Government Information (POGI) Act of 2012, which aims to institute transparency and accountability by giving the public access to government records and information, and recognizing the people’s right to know. Their counterparts in the House of Representatives, however, have only approved the counterpart bill on 1st reading last week and plan to continue the debates next year.

US President Barack Obama promised to use "whatever power this office holds" to engage Americans, law enforcement and health professionals to try to prevent more tragedies like the killing of 26 individuals in a kindergarten school in Newtown, Connecticut. Visiting the site and consoling those affected in the 4th mass shooting under his presidency, he vented passion and anger, and poignantly read the names of the 6- to 7-year olds, as well as the 6 heroic adults who tried to protect their innocent charges when the 20-year-old gunman unleashed terror. Obama's impassioned remarks set a new mission for his presidency of curtailing rampant gun violence.

Category 3 Tropical Cyclone Evan left a swathe of destruction across Fiji after battering the Pacific nation for more than 12 hours, destroying homes, flooding rivers and stranding thousands of tourists. Almost 8,500 locals sheltered from the cyclone in evacuation centers, while thousands of international tourists, many relocated from outlying islands for their own safety, rode out the storm in the resorts of main island Viti Levu, which bore the brunt of the cyclone's fury overnight. With Fiji's extensive planning as the storm advanced, officials said there were no reported fatalities as the storm headed out to sea early December 18.

Incoming Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said December 17 there would be no compromise on Japan's sovereign claim of Senkaku islands, which China is disputing and calling as Diaoyus. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party convincingly won the December 16 elections having pushed a hawkish line on the island dispute throughout the campaign, pledging to boost Japan's control over the strategically important, but uninhabited outcrops in the East China Sea.

The 1996 massacre of 16 kids aged 5 and 6 in the tranquil Scottish town of Dunblane may provide some insights to the recent mass killing of similarly young kids in Connecticut, US. After the Dunblane gun violence, Britain passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, making registration mandatory for owning shotguns and banning semi-automatic and pump-action weapons. UK lawmakers also passed a ban on the private ownership of all handguns in mainland Britain, giving the country some of the toughest anti-gun legislation in the world. The British public generally supported ban, with most saying they saw no need for guns. Data showed the ban initially appeared to have little impact as the number of crimes involving guns in England and Wales rose heavily during the late 1990s, but since then the offenses and handgun-related crimes have fallen.

US President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner have met at the White House as talks on avoiding the "fiscal cliff" gather pace. At the 45-minute meeting on Monday, December 17, which follows face-to-face discussions on Thursday and a phone call between the two on Friday, Boehner has signaled he would agree to raising tax rates for those earning more than US$1 million a year and would raise the debt ceiling to ensure the government is funded for a year. He would like the White House to agree to $1 trillion of spending cuts. A deal must be reached by 1 January, or a combination of steep tax rises and sharp spending cuts will take effect.

With social media-savvy ones posting 140-character tweets regularly, previous posts get buried fast and easy. To solve the issue on archiving, which provides the ability to review past tweets, the microblogging site Twitter is testing a new service that could send to those who request a rundown of what have been said from the very first tweet onwards. The rollout will likely be soon.