Happy VD!  Valentine’s Day, that is.  There’s something happening in the mountain where North Korea tests nuclear weapons – Whether its Volcanoes or wildfires, it’s getting kind of hard to breath in Indonesia – Russia takes a bad policy and doubles down – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs.

There’s been a “significant acceleration” of activity at North Korea’s Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site in the northeast of the country, but experts believe a test isn't imminent.  The “38 North” blog of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University says North Korea is likely working on a new tunnel in the mountain where nuclear devices are tested.  But there are two other tunnels believed to be needed for a test, and they are not complete.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is refusing North Korea’s demand to briefly delay a joint military exercise this month so that it does not overlap with the scheduled reunion of families separated by the Korean War.  Kerry is visiting South Korea to try to tamp damp regional tensions.  One has to wonder if Kerry isn’t missing an enormous opportunity here, as North Korea in the past has bellicosely demanded that the US-South Korean drills be cancelled – this time, Pyongyang is requesting only that they be delayed for a few days.

Up to 200,000 people are evacuating their homes in Indonesia after a volcano erupted in east Java.  Ash and debris from Mount Kelud blackened the sky, and came down as far away as Surabaya City, 130 kilometers away.  Three major airports have been forced to ground flights for the time being.

Meanwhile, haze has returned to Sumatra earlier than usual, because of a combination of forest and peat land fires in six areas across the archipelago, and a lack of rain in the region.  The abnormal weather in the equatorial Pacific is influenced by the El Nino weather phenomenon. 

Russia is expanding its official homophobia to hurt kids, banning foreign same-sex couples – and single people from countries where same-sex marriages are legal – from adopting Russian children.  Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree earlier this week.  It comes amid widespread criticism of the country’s anti-LGBT policies before and during the Winter Olympics.

Russian president Vladimir Putin kept his shirt on when he greeted Egyptian military leader Field Marshal Abdullah Fatah al-Sisi at his official residence outside Moscow, and endorsed al-Sisi for Egypt’s presidency.  Al-Sisi has not officially announced his intentions, but it’s widely expected he’ll run for the top office and win, given his popularity and lack of a credible rival.

At least seven Somali civilians were killed when a remote-controlled bomb aimed at a United Nations convoy tore through cars and teashops just outside Aden Adde International Airport at Mogadishu.  Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, which failed to harm any of its UN targets.

Former castaway Jose Salvador Alvarenga is resting in hospital in San Rafael, El Salvador, and has one simple, completely understandable request – no more ocean.  A Psychiatrist who visited Alvarenga says, “He doesn't want to know anything about the sea. He wants to avoid, in any way possible, being in front of the sea.”  Alvarenga was adrift in the Pacific Ocean from December 2012 until a couple of weeks ago when he washed up on a beach in the Marshall Islands.  I’d be kind of done with it, too.

The Porte Doree aquarium in Paris unveiled an amazing exhibit, two incredibly rare albino alligators bought from a reptile collector in Florida.  Aquarium head Michel Hignette says aquariums save the lives of these reptiles since they cannot survive in the wild – their bright white skin would burn in the sunlight and attract predators.  It’s believed that there are fewer than 30 albino alligators alive in the world.