THIS is what I mean by a Knowledge Economy
It turns out that Pakistan and North Korea, both suffering from economics that are going round and round and about to vanish down the toilet, came up with a novel approach to trade. The Koreans supplied Pakistan with rocket technology and Pakistan supplied the technology for building warheads. Both countries have well educated scientists and technicians perfectly capable of doing the physical work so all that had to be traded was the knowledge and you can do that in half a dozen emails, with attachments. The rest of the story is at The New Yorker

A former senior Pakistani official told me that his government's contacts with North Korea increased dramatically in 1997; the Pakistani economy had foundered, and there was "no more money" to pay for North Korean missile support, so the Pakistani government began paying for missiles by providing "some of the know-how and the specifics." Pakistan helped North Korea conduct a series of "cold tests," simulated nuclear explosions, using natural uranium, which are necessary to determine whether a nuclear device will detonate properly. Pakistan also gave the North Korean intelligence service advice on "how to fly under the radar," as the former official put it—that is, how to hide nuclear research from American satellites and U.S. and South Korean intelligence agents.

Now, when the US caught the North Koreans exporting missiles to Yemen last year, they had to let the ship continue because

• Yemen is now an ally in the War on terror
• The missiles weren't going to Iran or Iraq.

The next interesting question is this; what does Yemen trade to North Korea for missiles worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece?