Lula wants permanent UN Security Council seats for Africa and Latin America

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Tuesday opened the 79th United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York with a speech focused on the Security Council's shortcomings in the face of recent global events and called for a permanent seat on the body for Latin America as well as for Africa while insisting that such an omission was "an unacceptable echo of the domination practices of the colonial past." Today, only the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom are permanent members, and all of them have veto powers.