For the 12th straight year, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end Washington's four-decade old economic embargo against Cuba, which Havana has called 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. Opposing the resolution were the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands.

Cuba has been under a U.S. trade and travel embargo since Fidel Castro defeated the CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. But this year, the Bush administration's criticisms 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,''' U.S. 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 President Fidel Castro, Perez shot back: ``it is the people of Cuba who say 'Hasta la vista to the blockade, Hasta la vista to genocide.'''