In the corridors of the blue-tinted building on the East River, the shock is still palpable. Despite the recent insistence of Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, that human rights and security are intertwined, Russia and China have blocked an effort to isolate and punish the despots of Zimbabwe, in a move that seems to bode ill for action by the Security Council in other places.rnEspecially disappointing for many Westerners was the abrupt way in which Russia vetoed sanctions against President Robert Mugabe-only a day after Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's new head of state, had joined his partners in the Group of Eight, a rich-country club, in deploring Zimbabwe's rigged and violent elections. The G8 statement had included a warning of "financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for violence".
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