N Korea nuke test

London, Feb. 3: Spy satellites have caught North Korean engineers making the final preparations for their third atomic bomb test in the remote northeast of the country.

Surveillance of the test site at Punggye-ri, 230 miles northeast of capital Pyongyang, showed technicians working on the southernmost of three tunnels bored into a mountainside, South Korean officials disclosed yesterday.

“We’ve found that work presumed to be part of preparations for a nuclear test has entered its final stage,” a government source told Yonhap, the official news agency.

Twitter jail

Kuwait City (AFP): Kuwait’s lower court on Sunday sentenced an Opposition youth activist to five years in jail “with immediate effect” for insulting the emir on Twitter, a rights group said. Mohammad Eid al-Ajmi is the third Opposition youth activist to be convicted for insulting the emir on Twitter.

Lanka vessel

Colombo (PTI): The Sri Lankan Navy rescued about 138 Bangladeshi and Myanmar nationals from a sinking fishing vessel off the island’s eastern coast on Sunday, officials said. One passenger was found dead, while many other rescued from the boat were dehydrated, a naval spokesperson said.

Iraq blast

Kirkuk (Reuters): At least 33 people were killed in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Sunday when a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside a police headquarters and gunmen disguised as officers tried to storm the compound. The blast was the third major attack in weeks in or near the multiethnic city.