Global Policy Forum

Cuban media interrupted their normal program on Tuesday to show a live vote in the United Nations General Assembly, which called on the United States to unconditionally lift the economic embargo against Cuba.

Some 182 countries voted for the document which urged the United States to end the 44-year-old commercial and economic embargo on Cuba, while only four countries voted against it and one abstained. The blockade was costly both to the United States as well as Cuba, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said, referring to a recent study by the University of Alabama which said repealing the blockade can generate 100,000 new jobs and 6 million US dollars for the US economy.

"Silence cannot fool all the people all the time," the foreign minister criticized the United States for not taking part in the vote by citing Abraham Lincoln's words, one of America's most famous presidents.

The economic embargo on Cuba prevents it from receiving financial aid from the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank, which respectively offer loans of 4.4 billion dollars and 4.5 billion dollars each year. The Cuban government said the blockade has cost Cuba 80 billiondollars since the United States imposed it on the Caribbean country more than 40 years ago.