BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva opened this year’s session of United Nations general assembly by hitting out at the US blockade of Cuba, in place now for over six decades.

Other leaders from the global South also used part of their speeches to the general assembly’s 78th session  to join in the condemnation of US attempts to strangle the economy of the socialist island and other nations of the global South.

Lula, as the left-wing president is universally known, blasted the US classification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and said: “Brazil will continue to denounce measures taken without protection in the UN charter, such as the economic and financial blockade imposed on Cuba.”

The Brazilian leader also condemned a global increase in racism and xenophobia and warned against the rise of “far-right adventurers who deny politics and sell solutions that are as simple as they are wrong. 

“Many have fallen to the temptation of replacing failed neoliberalism with primitive, authoritarian and conservative nationalism." 

Bolivian President Luis Arce denounced the blockade of Cuba as “inhuman and criminal.”

His Argentinian counterpart Alberto Fernandez also called for an end to the blockade of Cuba, saying that its continuation was “unacceptable.”

He went on to demand that Havana be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. 

Widening his criticism of Washington’s foreign policy, Mr Fernandez added: “The sanctions imposed by the US on Venezuela must cease immediately. Their prolongation over time has only harmed the living conditions of Venezuelans and led millions of them into exile.”

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel described the blockade as an “extraterritorial, cruel and silent economic war that is accompanied by a powerful political machinery of destabilisation against my country.”

He added: “The Cuban people resist and creatively win in the face of this ruthless economic war, which, since 2019, in the midst of the pandemic, opportunistically escalated to an even more extreme dimension.”

Mr Diaz-Canel also condemned sanctions imposed on nations such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, as well as Zimbabwe, Syria, North Korea and Iran.

US President Joe Biden did not respond to calls to lift the sanctions.

Instead, he used much of his speech to appeal for the world to remain united in defending Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, warning that no nation can be secure if “we allow Ukraine to be carved up.”