Johannesburg - Helen Suzman, who spent more than a decade as a lonely parliamentary voice against the racial policies of the former white minority South African regime, died Thursday at age 91, reported the SAPA news agency.

Suzman's daughter, Frances Jowell, told the news agency that Suzman died peacefully in her home in Johannesburg.

Suzman joined parliament as a member of the opposition United Party in 1953. After an internal party divide, she joined the newly created Progressive Party and proceeded to be that party's only member of parliament from 1961 to 1974, when seven other party members joined the legislature.

Havana - As Cuba prepared to officially commemorate 50 years of socialism later Thursday, President Raul Castro declared that socialism had "not failed in any way."

In a radio address, the younger brother of Fidel Castro, the father of the Cuban revolution who is too ill to appear in public at any celebrations, disputed remarks by the "enemy ... that socialism has been a failure."

Washington - Step by step into the White House: After returning later Thursday to Chicago from vacationing in Hawaii, president-elect Barack Obama and his family are moving this weekend to Washington.

With school opening Monday for daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, the Obamas are to take up temporary residence at the prestigious Hay Adams Hotel, NBC broadcaster reported.

The luxury 19th-century hotel faces the White House from the other end of Lafayette Square, and is named after two of its most famous residents: John Hay, the one-time private assistant to president Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Adams, author and descendant of two of the country's early 19th century presidents - John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

Washington - US president-elect Barack Obama is to start consulting Monday with Congress on an estimated 775-billion-dollar emergency economic stimulus programme he hopes to sign into law upon his inauguration January 20.

With the country in recession for a year and US stock indices shedding 34 to 40 per cent of their value in 2008, the economy tops Obama's agenda. He plans to meet Monday with the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Democrat, the Washington Post reported.

Prague - Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus on Thursday urged people to vote in June's European Parliament elections as Prague assumed the European Union's rotating presidency until July 1.

Klaus, a fierce critic of the EU and deeper European integration, in his New Year address urged Czechs to the polls so they contribute to shaping the 27-member bloc into "a truly democratic space."

Buenos Aires/Havana  - Cuba may be c