Rare-earth elements are not necessarily rare, but are found only in low-concentration deposits and are difficult to extract. They are used (at low concentrations) in many technologies: flat-panel displays, LED lights, camera lenses, catalytic converters, disc-drives, batteries, and many more. Now, the largest use is in permanent magnets, which are used in electric motors and generators. With the aim towards ‘zero carbon’ and electrification, manifest in the proliferation of electric cars and wind turbines, the demand for permanent magnets has soared.

Cold War strategic competition was dominated by the actions of the US and USSR. Their material preponderance, coupled with tightly integrated multilateral alliances systems in Europe, oriented competition around this central axis of competition. But the current environment is less centralized, characterized by cross-cutting alliances and interacting nuclear dyads. How has this changed the nature of nuclear competition? We assess this question by considering the inter-Korean competition and its effects outside the peninsula.

Abstract will be posted shortly

Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is everywhere right now.   From the blue tick ‘journalists’ on the remnants of Twitter to boardrooms and the world’s battlefields.  Yet if the observer grabs any two OSINT examples or indeed any two OSINT practitioners, it is likely that they will get completely different answers to all of the questions in this seminar’s title.

This talk provides an analysis of shifting global terrorism and extremism trends from a Southeast Asian and more specifically Singaporean vantage point. It sketches out the ideological and physical dimensions of the threat in Southeast Asia, explores an emergent far right ideological strain in a region long dominated by an Islamist extremist one - and reinforces the need for a holistic, multisectoral response to the threat, incorporating calibrated military/law enforcement responses as part of an “indirect” strategic counter-terrorism effort.

In the 1960s, the Soviet Navy was quietly recapitalising and expanding. As détente collapsed in the late 1970s, western analysts panicked as the Soviet Fleet patrolled the world ocean, supported socialist revolutions around the world and established naval bases astride vital maritime chokepoints such as the Bab-al-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. But the signs had been there all along. Under the visionary leadership of Admiral of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov, the USSR had hankered after sea power for a generation.

Sir Cecil Clementi (金文泰) (1875-1947) arguably was the most scholarly and gifted of all Hong Kong’s 28 colonial governors. As a young official he quickly mastered Chinese and in 1904 published a scholarly translation of Zhang Ziyong’s （招子庸）(1786-1847）Cantonese Love Songs (粵謳), the laments of south China’s ‘flowerboat’ girls. He was also a tireless traveller and spy, undertaking an epic journey across China from Kashgar to Kowloon.