US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (C), flanked by a Georgian honor guard and a woman wearing a traditional costume, gets ready to board her flight out of Tbilisi on July 10, 2008 after talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (not pictured). Rice called for a halt to violence in two separatist provinces of Georgia and said the United States would work to help stabilize the area. Rice's visit to Georgia came amid increasingly open diplomatic confrontation between the United States and Russia over the status of Abkhazia and the other separatist province, South Ossetia, and over Georgia's desire to join NATO. AFP PHOTO / VLADIMIR VALISHVILI