LONDON (AFP) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is "happy" at the veto of a draft resolution to impose tough new sanctions, the country's ambassador to the world body told BBC television from New York Saturday.

"President Mugabe is happy to know that the United Nations is still a body where there's equal sovereignty of every member of the United Nations and there are checks and balances within the system that protects the weak from the powerful," Boniface Chidyausiku said in an interview.

Earlier, China and Russia joined Libya, South Africa and Vietnam in opposing the US draft, which would have imposed an assets freeze and a travel ban on the veteran leader and 13 of his cronies, plus an arms embargo.

The vote, on which Indonesia abstained, provoked strong reactions from Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, and the United States. Both pointed the finger at Russia for reneging on a G8 agreement to back sanctions.

But Chidyausiku said the blocking of the draft resolution was "great news".

"It's a reflection of the rule of law in the United Nations that nobody has monopoly on how things should be in the Security Council. Reason has prevailed," he added.

He said the "machinations" of Britain, France and the United States, as well as their "flimsy reasons" for fresh sanctions, had been exposed and there was "no justification for that type of action".