The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was "displeased" with Russia and China for blocking UN sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe and warned Washington could still act on its own.

Moscow and Beijing on Friday vetoed a US-sponsored draft at the UN Security Council that called for an assets freeze and a travel ban on President Mugabe and 13 of his associates as well as an arms embargo.

"I was displeased," Bush told a news conference. "We spent a lot of time on this subject at the G8."

At its summit in Japan last week, the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial countries discussed the need for UN Security Council resolutions against the regime of Mugabe, who has been in power since 1981.

"I was disappointed that the Russians vetoed" the resolution, he added. Russia-but not China-is on the G8, which also includes the United States, Japan, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has called the veto a "disturbing" U-turn for Moscow, saying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had backed a G8 summit statement promising new actions against Zimbabwe.

Jendayi Frazer, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Africa envoy, told senators on Tuesday that China may have won African support with economic aid but was also perceived as enabling authoritarian government in Zimbabwe.

"So a new day is coming in Zimbabwe, and China would want be on the right side of the forces of democratic change," Frazer said.

Bush said the United States was now mulling further US sanctions against Mugabe and his associates.

"I think we need tot analyze whether or not we can have more bilateral sanctions on the regime leaders," Bush told reporters on Tuesday.

He stressed any action taken would target the leaders of Zimbabwe rather than its poeple who are suffering from hyper-inflation and chronic food shortages in the former breadbasket of southern Africa.

"These sanctions are not against the Zimbabwe peoplet The Treasury Department and State Department are now working on potential US action," Bush said.

During her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Frazer described as "fairly robust" existing US financial and travel restrictions on individuals and companies that support Mugabe.