VENEZUELA’S President Nicolas Maduro called out the United States for its “criminal, inhuman aggression” against his country in an address to the UN general assembly on Wednesday night.

Mr Maduro pointed out that over $30 billion (£24bn) of Venezuelan assets have been “snatched, frozen and kidnapped” from accounts in the US and Europe as a result of the US government’s unilateral sanctions.

He called the US “the most dangerous empire in universal history” but said Venezuelans would continue to stand firm in the “battle for peace, for the homeland, for the region, for humanity.”

He thanked UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet for calling on the US to lift its punitive sanctions regime, which has undermined Venezuela’s efforts to contain Covid-19.

But he highlighted the US’s role in a failed coup attempt in May known as the “Bay of Piglets,” which saw former US special forces join up with mercenaries and launch a botched boat invasion from Colombia, and the recent arrest of a US spy in possession of weapons and documents relating to Venezuela’s oil and electricity sectors.

Venezuela suffered further power cuts, which the government has previously blamed on sabotage by US proxies, on Wednesday. “It is a permanent siege,” he said.

Venezuela is also fighting in British courts for the return of £800 million worth of gold it deposited in the Bank of England, which the bank is withholding on the grounds that the British government recognises the unelected opposition figure Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s president.

Mr Maduro’s passionate address, delivered to the virtual summit by video with the president standing before a portrait of Latin American liberation icon Simon Bolivar, echoed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s warning to the US that “unilateralism and seeking hegemony are unpopular, and will be rejected.”

The summit also saw clashes over global responses to Covid-19, with a World Health Organisation scheme to ensure equitable access to vaccines — Covax — listing 156 countries as having agreed to join — but not the US, China or Russia.

The WHO said it was still in talks with China on the subject, with Beijing saying it intends to make its vaccine globally available anyway and was pursuing a policy “in essence the same as Covax.”