The New York Times reports North Korea "called President Bush an 'imbecile' and 'a tyrant that puts Hitler into the shade' on Monday, unleashing a stream of insults that seemed to rule out any serious progress on nuclear disarmament talks before the American election this fall. 'The meeting of the working group for the six-party talks cannot be opened because the U.S. has become more undisguised in pursuing its hostile policy,' a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry told the nation's state-controlled news agency. . . . The Monday tirade appeared to have been set off by a campaign speech in Wisconsin last week by Mr. Bush, who referred to Kim Jong Il, North Korea's hereditary leader, as a 'tyrant.'" The Times notes that "analysts of North Korea have been saying in recent days that" the communist nation "appears to be suspending serious talks until its leaders know whom they will have to deal with in January: John Kerry or Mr. Bush."

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