Dr. Condoleezza Rice - Dr. Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State on January 26, 2005. Prior to this, she was the assistant to the president for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, since January, 2001.
In June 1999, she completed a six-year tenure as Stanford University's Provost, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As provost, she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students.
As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.
At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a senior fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984).
From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as director and then senior director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council and as a special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs.
In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as special assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military.
Rice was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan, and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors.
She was a founding board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula.
In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.
Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974, her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975, and her PhD from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.
Rice is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995, the National Defense University in 2002, the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan State University in 2004. She resides in Washington, D.C.
The Hon Stephen Smith - Stephen Smith was sworn in as Minister for Foreign Affairs on 3 December 2007.
Mr Smith was born in Narrogin, Western Australia and spent his early years in Narrogin and Southern Cross. He received his secondary school education at Christian Brothers High School Highgate in Perth.
Mr Smith is a Barrister and Solicitor by profession. He completed his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws at the University of Western Australia. Mr Smith practised as a Barrister and Solicitor in Perth, then completed a Master of Laws at London University, and subsequently lectured and tutored in Law in London.
From 1987 to 1990 he was the State Secretary of the Western Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party and from 1983 to 1987 he was Principal Private Secretary to the Attorney-General of Western Australia.
During 1991 and 1992, Mr Smith was Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Australia and Senior Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer of Australia, Paul Keating.
Mr Smith has been the Federal Member for Perth since March 1993.
In his first Parliamentary term he was Chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Securities and a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Banking, Finance and Public Administration. During 1996 and 1997, Mr Smith also served as a member of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.
Prior to his appointment as Foreign Minister, Mr Smith held a range of Shadow Ministerial positions including Shadow Minister for Trade, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy, Shadow Minister for Communications,Shadow Minister for Health, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations.
While U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice usually discusses and determines world affairs with international diplomats and politicians, but, in Perth recently, she engaged in a relaxed conversation with the students of Mercedes College for girls.
Rice discuesses the importance of education, the role of democracy, her passion for Academia and answers questions from what she thinks of George W. Bush, to whether she likes shopping- Australian Broadcasting Corporation
