In a different context yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, indulged in a bit cliche mongering, ""If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then what is it?" he asked his audience at AIPAC in connection with Iran's nuclear program.

You could ask the same questions about the European Union - just substitute the phrase "United States of Europe" for duck and you'll get my point.

Less than two working days after EU leaders signed a new fiscal compact limiting annual budget deficits to 3.5 percent of GDP. Individual states are already squawking.

For the last three weeks I have been working on a series of articles that will appear on GlobalPost shorty about the alarming rise of xenophobic ultranationalism in eastern Europe. Nazi worship is not just for the fringe out there.

While I was on assignment the deal for Greece's second bail-out was agreed but I knew there would be plenty left in the story to blog about when I came back to it.

After a dangerous journey out of Homs - one in which a number of his Syrian guides were killed trying to get him to safety - British photographer Paul Conroy has finally made it back to Britain.

He has given a couple of television interviews.  This one is at the BBC.

"I think its important to bear witness," he says.  "It's a slaughterhouse."

I urge you to watch.

The younger Murdoch had been in the firing line over the company's response to the phone-hacking scandal.

The line coming from News Corp, the parent company of all Rupert Murdoch's businesses, is this is no big deal. James Murdoch is deputy COO of News Corp and his move to New York has been long planned. News International, which runs News Corp's British newspaper holdings, is a fairly small part of the Murdoch empire, so resigning that title is to be expected.

They can spin it any way they want but you can't tell me that on July 1st of last year that was the plan.