Rice installed as Secretary of State

CONDOLEEZZA RICE took over as America’s 66th Secretary of State yesterday to confront an agenda laden with difficult and potentially explosive foreign policy problems.

At the very top is a grinding war in Iraq that has taken the lives of more than 1,400 US troops.

Echoing President George W Bush’s inaugural theme, she told a large gathering of State Department employees in Washington: “America will stand for freedom and for liberty. It’s great to be here.”