Cuba-US: 'Embargo as usual' flies in the face of intl. opposition

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez complained that the U.S. embargo against Cuba has remained intact under the government of Barack Obama, who he said has "a historic opportunity" to eliminate the "obsolete" and "unacceptable" blockade in place for nearly half a century. On Oct. 28, the United Nations General Assembly will vote again on a motion calling for an end to the embargo against Cuba. For 17 years in a row, the U.N. has called on the U.S. to lift the embargo. The motion that Cuba will submit to the General Assembly details the impact of the embargo on areas like health, education, food and transportation in this Caribbean island nation, and says it has cost Cuba 96 billion dollars, or 236 billion dollars at today's exchange rates. "It is not hard to imagine the progress Cuba would have made…if it had not been subjected to this brutal economic war for (nearly) 50 years," says the Cuban report on the need to eliminate the U.S. embargo in place since February 1962.