New York  - The new UN General Assembly president, a Nicaraguan Roman Catholic priest, strongly attacked western dominance and the power of the UN Security Council over the world body as the UN General Assembly opened Tuesday.

Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, 75, said in his speech opening the 63rd session of the General Assembly that the United Nations should be democratized, and high-level talks should be held to put an end to Western power.

He said the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are "basically controlled by the United States and Europe ... and are used as instruments of domination."

"The world resents this and this situation must change," said d'Escoto Brockmann, who prefers to be called Father Miguel. He is a former foreign minister of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1990s and remains a foreign policy adviser to current President Daniel Ortega, a former Sandinista leader who returned to power in 2006.

He said the word democracy at the United Nations has become "empty, with no real meaning or substance."

He attacked the five-decade-old US trade embargo against Cuba despite UN demands for Washington to rescind it.

D'Escoto Brockmann attacked the veto power of the five UN Security Council permanent members - the US, Russia, France, Britain and China.

"In the case of some of those members, the veto privilege seems to have gone to their heads and has confused them to the point of making them think they are entitled do as they please without consequence," he said.

He said challenging the 15-nation council was similar to stirring up a "hornets' nest." But he said even hornets' nests can be successfully managed with precautions, which he intends to discuss with the membership.

"The state of our world today is deplorable, inexcusable and, therefore, shameful," d'Escoto Brockmann said. "All of us, without exception, share responsibility for the state of our world."

Despite his criticism of Western dominance over the UN, the new president said he intends to deal with challenges facing the world, including food crises, poverty and hunger, climate change, water shortage, terrorism and human rights, nuclear disarmament and other issues that normally have been part of the agenda of discussion at the UN.

The Nicaraguan priest-turned-diplomat, who was publicly scorned by Pope John Paul II for his leftist opinions, has not concealed his past as a Sandinista fighter and his dislike of the United States. He was chosen by Latin America and the Caribbean to occupy the assembly presidency, which rotates annually among world regions.

For the first time, the assembly was entertained by musicians at the opening, who praised the new president. D'Escato Brockmann was born in Los Angeles in 1933 into a family of diplomats, he studied at Columbia University in New York, then decided to take up the priesthood.

He was ordained in 1961 as a member of the Maryknoll Missionary Congregation.

He returned to Nicaragua to join the Sandinista National Liberation Front in its struggle against the US-backed government in Managua, and was appointed foreign minister in 1979 when it overthrew the US-backed Samoza government.

He stepped down as foreign minister in 1990 with the end of the Sandinista regime, which was voted out of office in multi-party elections. (dpa)