For the 12th straight year, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly yesterday against Washington's four-decade old economic embargo against Cuba that Havana sees as tantamount to "genocide."

The annual roasting of the United States by friends and adversaries alike was approved by a record vote of 179 to 3 with two abstentions on the resolution urging Washington to end the trade and travel sanctions.

Opposing the resolution were the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands while Morocco and Micronesia abstained.

Similar resolutions have been adopted by increasing majorities each year since 1992. Last year's vote was 173 to 3 with four abstentions. The resolutions are not mandatory but express the will of the international community. Cuba has been under a US trade and travel embargo since Fidel Castro defeated a CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. But this year, the Bush administration's criticisms of Castro were more strident and answered in kind by Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.

"Cuba's best day is when the Cuban people have terminated Castro's evil Communist dictatorial regime and said to him, 'Hasta la vista, baby,'" US representative Sichan Siv said. California's Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger uttered the oft-quoted line in the film "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."

Angry at the insult to the Cuban president, Perez shot back: "It is the people of Cuba who say 'Hasta la vista to the blockade, Hasta la vista to genocide.'"

"I ask you to vote in favour of Cuba's right - which is also today everyone's right," Perez said to applause.