KEY POINTS:
PARIS - European leaders were to hold urgent talks about Zimbabwe today after plans to impose United Nations sanctions on Robert Mugabe's brutal regime collapsed in disarray.
Russia and China used their vetoes in the UN Security Council to block the measures - only three days after the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a statement endorsing financial penalties against leading figures in Harare.
The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, accused the Russians of double-dealing, adding: "The Russians and Chinese were briefing in all sorts of directions."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would discuss the way forward in Paris today with the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and European Commission President Jose Barroso. It is understood that the Foreign Office and the US State Department realised on Saturday that Moscow was backtracking.
- OBSERVER
