Booga-Wooga

In case you've seen the media hype on the missile test by North Korea set to come any day now, you need to know something. They say they're launching a satellite and that may very well be the case but the media propaganda never connects the dots. Here goes:

"Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defense, was on the board of technology giant Asea Brown Bovery (ABB) when it won a deal to supply North Korea with two nuclear power plants.

Weapons experts say waste material from the two reactors could be used for so-called 'dirty bombs'.

The Swiss-based ABB on Friday told swissinfo that Rumsfeld was involved with the company in early 2000, when it netted a $200 million (SFr270million) contract with Pyongyang.

The ABB contract was to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho, on North Koreaís east coast.

Rumsfeld - who is one of the Bush administration's most strident 'hardliners' on North Korea - was a member of ABB's board between 1990 and February 2001, when he left to take up his current post.

Wolfram Eberhardt, a spokesman for ABB, told swissinfo that Rumsfeld ìwas at nearly all the board meetings during his decade-long involvement with the company.

The ABB contract was a consequence of a 1994 deal between the US and Pyongyang to allow construction of two reactors in exchange for a freeze on the North's nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea revealed last year that it had secretly continued its nuclear weapons programme, despite its obligations under the deal with Washington.

The Bush government has repeatedly used the agreement to criticise the former Clinton administration for being too soft on North Korea. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, has been among the most vocal critics of the 1994 weapons accord.

Weapons experts have also speculated that waste material from the two reactors could be used for so-called 'dirty bombs'.

Rumsfeld's position at ABB could prove embarrassing for the Bush administration since while he was a director he was also active on issues of weapons proliferation, chairing the 1998 congressional Ballistic Missile Threat commission.

The commission suggested the Clinton-era deal with Pyongyang gave too much away because "North Korea maintains an active weapons of mass destruction programme, including a nuclear weapons programme."

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It's extremely hard to read mainstream papers without a frustration that'll explode your brains. So yeah, it's all bonkers, once again.