1.Condoleezza Rice
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National Security Adviser, Bush Administration
Age: 49
Country: U.S.
Advising the leader of the world's largest superpower--and having the ear of leaders around the globe--makes Rice, 49, the most powerful woman in the world. President George W. Bush trusts Rice implicitly, likely more than anyone else in the White House. When Rice speaks, she speaks for the president. With her silver-tongued diplomacy and steely nerve, Rice has played a key, behind-the-scenes role in helping to steer the United States through two wars, as well as the resulting controversies. Rice also served under President George H.W. Bush and in the Reagan administration. Despite growing up with racial segregation in Birmingham, Ala., Rice says her "parents had me absolutely convinced that, well, you may not be able to have a hamburger at Woolworth's but you can be president of the United States."-Elizabeth MacDonald
#2
Wu Yi
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Vice Premier, former Vice Mayor of Beijing
Age: 65
Country: China
As the highest-ranking female member of China's Politburo, and a vice premier and minister of health, Wu Yi (pronounced: "Woo Yee") is the most powerful woman in China. Known as "China's Iron Lady," Wu Yi, 65, a former vice mayor of Beijing, is a rising star in China's Communist Party. Proud, elegant, intelligent, Wu Yi impressed her party's leaders when she deftly helped hammer out five trade agreements with Russia in 1999 and oversaw delicate negotiations for China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Surprisingly, Wu Yi never envisioned a life in politics. "In my youth, I never developed a desire to enter politics. My biggest wish was to become a great entrepreneur," she once said.-E.M.
#3
Sonia Gandhi
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President, Congress Party
Age: 57
Country: India
No other woman in recent times has been more widely revered in India than Gandhi, 57. Gandhi made headlines in May when, after the party she led won India's democratic elections, she declined to take over the prime minister's seat. Now that her chosen successor, Sikh economist Manmohan Singh, has been given the job, Gandhi gets to reign over her beloved country anyway-without having to take responsibility for any mistakes the government might make. With political skills like this, anyone would think she had been born a Gandhi, and not simply had married into India's most famous political dynasty.-Chana Schoenberger
#4
Laura Bush
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U.S. First Lady
Age: 57
Country: U.S.
Make no mistake, Laura Bush, 57, is a powerful hand behind the scenes at the White House. The president often refers to her as the most important, guiding force in his life and credits the First Lady with turning him around, thus putting him on the path to the White House. And when it comes to an unruly press, reporters sit up and take note of what Mrs. Bush says, thanks to her calm, commanding and reassuring demeanor. Although the First Lady is a major force in her husband's re-election campaign, depending on the outcome in November, she may cede her power to philanthropist Teresa Heinz Kerry.-C.S.
#5
Hillary Rodham Clinton
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U.S. Senator
Age: 56
Country: U.S.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 56, has a knack for being smack in the middle of history. Clinton is the only former First Lady ever elected to the United States Senate and is the first New York Senator to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And Clinton is the first First Lady to survive an unprecedented, withering string of White House scandals, enough to take up years worth of late-night comedy monologues, including the historic impeachment trial of her husband. Talk persists as to whether Clinton will eventually run for president. She's adding to the speculation. "I'm having a great time being the Pres-, I mean, Senator from New York," she once said.-E.M.
#6
Sandra Day O'Connor
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Age: 74
Country: U.S.
The first woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, O'Connor, 74, is one of the most watched justices on the Court. "The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender," she once said, and for that reason, O'Connor is typically the justice to whom many arguments are directed. O'Connor has emerged from the shadow of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the Court's conservative bloc with decisions that are pragmatic, centrist and often searing in their logic. "It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren," she once said in a debate about school prayer.-E.M.
#7
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Age: 71
Country: U.S.
This Clinton appointee to the United State's highest court is a former general counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union and a longtime law professor. With a lightening quick mind, and a dry, retiring wit, associate justice Ginsburg, 71, spent the court's last session challenging the Bush administration and voting against the majority in several important cases, including Cheney v. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Guantanamo-detainee case in which the court allowed the president to declare an American citizen an enemy combatant.-C.S.
#8
Megawati Sukarnoputri
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President, Indonesia
Age: 57
Country: Indonesia
The 57-year-old Megawati (known as "Mega") came into power in 2001 after the impeachment of former president Abdurrahman Wahid. But being president of the world's largest Islamic nation (in terms of population), one that is a hotbed of anti-Western vitriol, is no easy feat. Besides Islamic militancy, Indonesia faces a host of economic troubles and regional separatism. Megawati's re-election in this fall's runoff contest is no sure thing, but don't expect her to drop out of politics even if she loses.-C.S.
#9
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
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President, Philippines
Age: 57
Country: Phillipines
By the time she became president of the Philippines in 2001, Arroyo, 57, was already ensconced in her country's power elite. Arroyo was re-elected to the Senate in 1995 with the highest number of votes in her country's history. Soon after, she was elected vice president of the Philippines with a huge mandate, almost 13 million votes. Arroyo was sworn in as the 14th president of the Philippines in 2001, only the second woman to be voted president of her country. Today, Arroyo is facing tough criticism for her recent decision to pull her troops out of Iraq in order to obtain the release of one of her citizens who had been kidnapped by terrorists there, which critics say will lead to more kidnappings.-E.M.
#10
Carleton "Carly" S. Fiorina
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Chair and Chief Executive, Hewlett-Packard
Age: 49
Country: U.S.
Fiorina, 49, took over as chief executive of this global computer behemoth in 1999 after two decades at AT&T and its ailing descendant, Lucent. When she became its chairwoman the following year, Fiorina soon revitalized HP, after enduring a brutal battle for a merger in 2001 with Compaq Computer. In the post-Internet boom era, Fiorina has been slaving to integrate Compaq and to help the combined company fend off other tech giants like IBM. Lately weak earnings have dogged her performance. Fiorina is also a board member of the New York Stock Exchange. A polished, sleek, and highly visible tech luminary, Fiorina is the most powerful businesswoman in the world.-C.S.
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