K-pop fans all over the globe will be able to enjoy KBS’ music program “Music Bank,” featuring onstage performances by Korea’s pop stars, live through Twitter’s live-streaming service starting mid-October, according to Twitter.

Twitter said Thursday that it will provide live-streaming services both on KBS.twitter.com and its Twitter account @KBSworldTV each week, in partnership with KBS World. The service is available without logging into the sites.

“We’ve been reviewing several live-streaming platforms, and we decided to work with Twitter, which has a huge K-pop fan base and offers an active live-streaming service,” a KBS World official said.

Twitter also shared its plan to expand its “in-stream video sponsorship deals,” where Twitter shares advertising revenue with its livestream partners.

Twitter is also set to live stream the K-pop World Festival 2017 that will be held on Friday at the Changwon Sports Complex Stadium, which will mark the first K-pop-related event livestream on Twitter.

Singapore is the world’s top destination for expatriates for the third year running but Switzerland is where they earn the most.

The battle for top spot was tight, with Singapore narrowly beating Norway. New Zealand is third, followed by Germany and then the Netherlands, according to an annual league table produced by British bank HSBC.

It polled 27,587 expats across the world, including 476 here, to compile a ranking of 46 economies.

Almost 75 per cent of those polled here said the country offered better earnings potential than their home country. Indeed, they cited a 42 per cent increase in their annual income since moving here to an average of almost US$118,000 (S$160,000).

But life in Singapore is not cheap, especially for the 40 per cent of those polled who have families.

Almost 90 per cent of this group say childcare here is more expensive than at home, although 26 per cent of all expats here feel their host city – Singapore – offers an excellent education system, compared with only 10 per cent of expats across the entire survey.

Globally, expats have an average annual gross personal income of just under US$100,000 – 25 per cent more than they had at home. That’s US$18,000 lower than the average in Singapore. But the place that really takes the cake in pay is Switzerland, where expats earn an average of more than US$193,000 a year – 54 per cent more than what they could draw at home. The top five economies by expat income are Switzerland, India, China, the United States and Hong Kong.

The report also found that investing in property is particularly popular among expats in Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Britain, home to some of the most expensive property markets in the world.

Separate research by Savills for HSBC showed prime residential property costs about US$3,800 per sq ft (psf) in Hong Kong, US$1,700 psf in London, US$990 psf in Singapore and US$590 psf in Dubai.

The HSBC poll also noted that 70 per cent of Singaporeans working abroad said their work-life balance has improved since they left home, compared with 53 per cent of expats globally. And 42 per cent of Singaporean expats said their social life is better than it was at home.

A Twitter statement said the social media company shared data with congressional investigators about ads from RT, a television group with links to the Moscow government.

Twitter said RT spent $274,000 in 2016 on Twitter ads that may have been used to try to influence the US election.

The news comes after Facebook acknowledged foreign entities linked to Russia paid to promote political messages on the leading social network, potentially violating US election laws.

A blog post by Twitter said its vice president for public policy, Colin Crowell, met with staff Thursday from two congressional panels investigating Russian interference in the election process.

“This is an ongoing process and we will continue to collaborate with investigators,” the statement said.

Twitter said it examined efforts by foreign agents to interfere with the election after Facebook indicated it found 450 accounts that appeared to have been used for this purpose.

“Of the roughly 450 accounts that Facebook recently shared as a part of their review, we concluded that 22 had corresponding accounts on Twitter,” the statement said.

“All of those identified accounts had already been or immediately were suspended from Twitter for breaking our rules, most for violating our prohibitions against spam.”

‘Text to vote’ scam

The statement added that RT, which was named in January in a US intelligence report on election interference, spent at least $274,100 in 2016 for 1,823 tweet ads or “promotions” that “definitely or potentially targeted the US market.”

“These campaigns were directed at followers of mainstream media and primarily promoted RT Tweets regarding news stories,” the statement added.

“We are concerned about violations of our terms of service and US law with respect to interference in the exercise of voting rights,” the statement said.

Twitter said that during the election campaign, it removed tweets “that were attempting to suppress or otherwise interfere with the exercise of voting rights, including the right to have a vote counted, by circulating intentionally misleading information.”

Twitter said some of the ads, or promoted tweets, aimed to deceive voters by telling them they could “text to vote,” which has no basis in fact.

“We have not found accounts associated with this activity to have obvious Russian origin, but some of the accounts appear to have been automated,” the statement said.

“We have shared examples of the content of these removed tweets with congressional investigators.”

Earlier this month, Facebook said it would turn over data on some 3,000 ads purchased by a Russian entity that appeared to inflame political divisions during the campaign. Some $100,000 was spent on the Facebook ads.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner called Twitter’s presentation “deeply disappointing” and “inadequate.”

Warner told reporters that the Twitter data was “basically derivative based on accounts that Facebook had identified (and) showed an enormous lack of understanding from the Twitter team of how serious this issue is, the threat it poses to democratic institutions, and again begs many more questions.”

New research on ‘bots’

US lawmakers as well as a special prosecutor are investigating whether Russia interfered with the election or aided Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign.

A study released Thursday meanwhile found the campaign to spread “junk news” during the 2016 presidential election via Twitter appeared to target key states that were the most contested.

The research paper by the Oxford University Project on Computational Propaganda suggested a sophisticated effort to spread disinformation using automated accounts, or “bots.”

The researchers said that in the days leading up to the election, “Twitter users got more misinformation, polarizing and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news.”

But in swing states, “average levels of misinformation were higher,” even when weighted for the relative size of the state.

The study is just the latest to highlight the role of a disinformation campaign, widely believed to have been directed from Russia, to influence the election and help Trump while hurting his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The Oxford researchers said the latest analysis suggests “strategically disseminated polarizing information” during the campaign.

A Twitter statement questioned the accuracy of the study, saying that research conducted by third parties about the impact of bots and misinformation on Twitter “is almost always inaccurate and methodologically flawed.”

One of the reasons for the inaccuracy, Twitter said, is that just two percent of all tweets contain geolocation data.

The growing Rohingya refugee crisis prompted the UN Security Council to hold a rare public meeting on Myanmar, with the US slamming the country for trying “to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority” while Beijing and Moscow backed the Myanmar authorities.

More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh in the last month, after the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched vicious operations against Rohingya rebels.

Witnesses and survivors said the vessel that overturned Thursday was just meters from the coast in rough waters, after it was lashed by torrential rain and high winds.

Local police inspector Moahmmed Kai-Kislu told AFP 15 bodies including at least 10 children and four women had so far washed ashore, and there were fears the number could still rise.

“They drowned before our eyes. Minutes later, the waves washed the bodies to the beach,” said Mohammad Sohel, a local shopkeeper.

Rare meeting

Seven of the UN’s 15-member Security Council voted to hold the body’s first public meeting on Myanmar since 2009, though they failed to arrive at a joint resolution.

Guterres urged authorities to halt military operations and open humanitarian access to its conflict-wracked western region.

“The situation has spiraled into the world’s fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare,” he said, while calling for those displaced from the conflict to be allowed to return home.

The UN chief noted that the “systemic violence” could cause unrest to spill into the central part of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, threatening 250,000 Muslims with displacement.

A donors’ conference would be held on October 9, he said.

Some of the strongest criticism came from US envoy Nikki Haley, who said: “We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be: a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority.

“And it should shame senior Burmese leaders who have sacrificed so much for an open, democratic Burma,” she added, in what appeared to be a rebuke to the country’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose reputation as a human rights champion has been left battered by the crisis.

Burma is an alternative name for Myanmar.

Haley warned: “We must now consider action against Burmese security forces who are implicated in abuses and stoking hatred among their fellow citizens.”

But Myanmar received strong support from close ally China as well Russia.

“The international community must be aware of the difficulties faced by the Burmese government, be patient and provide its assistance,” Chinese envoy Wu Haitao said.

“We must be very careful when we talk about ethnic cleansing and genocide,” added Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, shifting the blame toward Rohingya militants for “burning villages.”

Myanmar’s representative U Thaung Tun insisted there was “No ethnic cleaning, no genocide in Myanmar,” while Bangladeshi ambassador Masud Bin Momen called for the creation of safe zones within Myanmar to allow refugees to return home.

Distraught survivors

The latest drowning tragedy comes after a series of deadly accidents as desperate refugees surge across the two countries’ shared border.

The International Organization for Migration, which is leading the relief effort, told AFP one survivor said the boat sank as it tried to dock at a place that was out of sight of security forces.

“It’s a very sad story. There were a hundred Rohingya on board when it sank,” IOM spokesperson Hala Jaber told AFP.

One distraught survivor told AFP that his wife and one of their children had been killed when the ship sank.

“The boat hit something underground as it came close to the beach. Then it overturned,” said Nurus Salam, who had set off set off for Bangladesh from a coastal village in Myanmar late Wednesday with his family.

The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said 27 survivors had been located so far, including eight women and seven children.

The exodus began on August 25 when attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts prompted a Myanmar military crackdown.

It has created a humanitarian crisis as the government and aid agencies struggle to provide food, clean water and shelter.

Those who have made it to Bangladesh have brought with them harrowing accounts of murder and villages torched by Myanmar soldiers and mobs of ethnic Rakhine, who are Buddhists.

Rakhine, long a cauldron of ethnic and religious tensions, has been scarred by seething animosity since severe bloodshed erupted across the state in 2012.

The Rohingyas, the world’s largest stateless group, are treated as foreigners in Myanmar.

Speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting, US Ambassador Nikki Haley pressed for members of Myanmar’s military to face action from the global body in response to the violence and expressed sharp criticism of the civilian government.

“We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be: a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority,” said Haley.

“And it should shame senior Burmese leaders who have sacrificed so much for an open, democratic Burma,” she added, using an alternative name for Myanmar.

“The time for well-meaning, diplomatic words in this council has passed. We must now consider action against Burmese security forces who are implicated in abuses and stoking hatred among their fellow citizens.”

More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled from Rakhine in western Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh in the last month after a militant attack sparked a vicious military campaign.

While the UN has previously called the violence ethnic cleansing, Haley’s comments mark the strong criticism yet from Washington.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who is the de facto head of government, has been widely berated for failing to speak up for the Rohingya minority.

But her supporters say the 72-year-old lacks the power to rein in the army, with whom she has been in a delicate power-sharing arrangement since elections in 2015.

He said the target of 35,000 megawatts by 2019 was projected when the economic growth reached between 6 to 7 percent annually, while the growth up to 2019 was estimated to reach between 5 and 6 annually.

In her letter to Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan, Sri Mulyani called for an adjustment of electricity projects due to the weakening financial state of state-owned electricity company PLN. She said the company was burdened by numerous government electricity projects.

“We only need adjustments. If the economic growth reaches 7 per cent, a 3,500 MW project can be implemented. With the current growth, we may need to slow down a bit,” said Luhut, according to Antara, in Bandung, on Wednesday.

In the letter, Sri Mulyani called on the Jonan and State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno to push efficiency within PLN, especially when using a primary energy such as coal.

In response, the ministry’s deputy for energy, logistics, regions and tourism affairs, Edwin Hidayat Abdullah, said PLN has prepared several steps to fulfill its funding obligation through asset re-evaluation, asset productivity enhancement, efficiency in operation cost and goods and service procurements.

Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry spokesperson Kusdiana said that PLN had controlled their spending based on the existing parameters: electricity sales growth, sales volume and renewable energy.