Inside the General Assembly, several Latin American leaders gave speeches focusing on climate change, poverty and human rights. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega criticized the U.S. role in Latin American and the world.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega: “And then we had the immigrants from Europe who came over here to mix with those people and to become, in turn, owners of what didn’t belong to them. They robbed the original people of their rights and their cultures, and they imposed their culture and the interests of the colonizers, and that is what gave rise to what we see today. What we call the most exemplary democracy in the world is really tyranny. It is the most impressive and largest dictatorship that has ever existed: the empire of North America.”