Ecopolitics: Why Japan Risks Its Place In the World to Hunt Whales

Whirlwind Romances: The Next Madame Sarko
What kind of premièredame would Carla Bruni make? The closer French President Nicolas Sarkozy gets to marrying Bruni, the more serious that question becomes. Previously linked with Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, the former supermodel is a prolific seductress (the French press calls her a "praying mantis") who supported Sarkozy's Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, in the presidential election last May.

But with an engagement ring on the table, it's clear that Bruni is more than a rebound fling. And, barring a pop-star-style quick split, she might actually be cut out for First Dame status. "I don't see why she wouldn't be a good First Lady. He's already president. She knows what to expect," says Régine Torrent, the author of "First Ladies: D'Eleanor Roosevelt à Hillary Clinton."

Certainly Sarkozy's exwife, Cécilia, set the bar low—she complained that the First Ladyship "bored" her and made headlines by not bothering to vote at all. Later, she committed the diplomatic faux pas of cutting out on her husband's first G8 summit and bailing on a Bush family barbecue last summer in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Bruni, on the other hand, moves comfortably in powerful circles. She was famous as a supermodel long before she met Sarkozy. She's trilingual and well read—her 2007 album reprises poems by Auden and Yeats. And despite her bohemian look, this heiress to a tire fortune undoubtedly knows which fork goes where. "She's immensely rich," quips Torrent. "We don't need to worry about taxpayers' having to dress her."

—Tracy McNicoll

Entertainment: Faded Kings Of Pop Find Fan Base Abroad
Chris de Burgh ("Lady in Red"), adored in Tehran, will play the first Western concert there since 1979. Some Anglo C-listers who are big abroad: