How severity is computed

Severity is a published rule set, not a model output. Given the same signal, the score is the same every time, and any analyst can reconstruct it by hand. That matters more here than cleverness: a tool that cannot explain itself cannot be trusted with a decision.

Where this differs from a category-only tool

Most news monitors derive priority from the category alone, so every Armed Conflict story is HIGH regardless of where on earth it happened. That produces a dashboard where half of everything is HIGH, which is the same as nothing being HIGH.

Here, category is only the starting weight. An airstrike 9,000km away and a naval incident in the Singapore Strait do not score the same, because proximity, recency and corroboration across fronts are all part of the sum.

1. Category weight

Matched by keyword rules, first match wins, sharpest categories tested first.

Armed Conflict+40

Nuclear & WMD+40

Terrorism & Extremism+38

Military Operations+30

Maritime Security+30

Cyber & Information Warfare+26

Intelligence & Espionage+24

Geopolitical Tensions+22

Air Activity+20

Humanitarian & Disaster+18

Defence Relations+12

Regional Stability+12

General+5

2. Proximity to Singapore

Place names in the text are resolved against a gazetteer so news can be located.

Within 200km of Singapore+25

Immediate neighbourhood, under 800km+20

Southeast Asia, under 2,500km+14

Wider Asia-Pacific, under 5,000km+8

Beyond the region+3

Location could not be resolved+6

3. Recency

Last 6 hours+15

Last 24 hours+12

Last 3 days+8

Last week+4

Older+1

4. Cross-front corroboration

+10 for each additional front reporting in the same area and window. News plus air, or news plus sea, is a stronger signal than any one of them alone. This term is only available because four fronts are ingested; a news-only tool cannot compute it.

Thresholds

70 and above — HIGH

45 to 69 — MEDIUM

Below 45 — LOW

A HIGH therefore requires a severe category AND closeness AND recency. It is deliberately hard to reach. If most of the board is LOW, that is the filter working.

Sources and honesty

· News: CNA, The Straits Times, BBC World, Al Jazeera via public RSS.
· Air: OpenSky Network live aircraft states, filtered to military-pattern callsigns, emergency squawks and unusual altitudes.
· Earth: USGS seismic feed, magnitude 4.5 and above.
· Sea: currently derived from maritime-classified news. Live AIS needs a key and is not yet wired.
· Satellite thermal anomalies (NASA FIRMS) need a free key and are not yet wired.

Where a front is not fully wired the interface says so rather than showing a confident empty panel. Written from scratch against these public feeds; no code was taken from any copyleft-licensed monitor.