The chair of the committee said if Murdoch doesn't show on Tuesday, he would be in contempt of Parliament -- though there was confusion about what that actually means since its rarely ever been implemented. The BBC said it was "unchartered waters,"given that Murdoch is a non-Brit.

"If they have any shred of sense of responsibility or accountability for their position of power, then they should come and explain themselves before a select committee," the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said today (referring to Murdoch and his son James, who has also declined to testify Tuesday).

The Murdochs are most likely trying to buy some time, hoping the media frenzy dies down a little before they are forced to talk publicly -- in what is likely to be a very hostile setting. (James said he'd be willing to testify in August).

In the meantime, things aren't going any better for Murdoch in his home country -- the United States -- nor in Australia, his place of birth. The scandal has truly taken on a global dimension.

United States: Today, there were more calls for a congressional investigation. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA), a powerful member of the House oversight committee, accused Murdoch's company of potentially engaging in "political espionage or personal espionage."

He joined Republican Peter King, who yesterday called on the FBI to look into whether journalists tried to tap into the phones of 9/11 victims. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said earlier in the week he suspected a U.S. probe would "find some criminal stuff."

A U.S. criminal investigation -- though unlikely -- would be disastrous for Murdoch, who's empire is based in the United States. It would put the company -- and its many holdings, including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the New York Post,under a microscope like never before. Even beyond illegal activity, embarrassing or less-than-exemplary practices could be exposed.

Eliot Spitzer, for one, believes more shady dealings will emerge -- and will likely include Murdoch properties based in the United States. "Given the frequency with which he shuttled his senior executives and editors across the various oceans-Pacific as well as Atlantic-it is unlikely that the shoddy ethics were limited to Great Britain," the former prosecutor, governor, CNN anchor, and expert on shoddy ethics wrote in Slate.

Australia: Speaking of the Pacific, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard today said she was open to initiating a probe of Murdoch's Australia holdings -- which comprise nearly 70 percent of the country's print media and a good chunk of its TV market. 

Gillard said she was "disgusted" by the extent of the scandal in Britain.

The head of News Limited, Murdoch's Australian media arm, John Hartigan, said there would be an internal review of the company's practices, but said it was "offensive and wrong [to] connect the behavior in the UK with News Limited's conduct in Australia."

So, where does that leave Murdoch? Maybe China, where he's been expanding his footprint lately, is looking like a good refuge. His wife, Wendi, just produced a movie that is a hit there.

In fact, she told the Los Angeles Times -- apparently without any sense of irony -- that she had little trouble raising money for the movie: "Everybody in China wanted to give us money," she told the paper. "In China, everybody knows who I am. It definitely helped. They have confidence in me."

With close-fought elections coming up on Saturday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has proposed that the country do away with it's recognition of the British monarchy, but only after the reign of Queen Elizabeth ends: 

"What I would like to see as the prime minister is that we work our way through to an agreement on a republic. But I think the appropriate time for this nation to be a republic will be when we see the monarch change."

Ms Gillard added that she obviously wanted to see Queen Elizabeth live a long and happy life.

"Having watched her mother, there's every chance that she will," she said.

Gillard's opponent Tony Abbot is a staunch monarchist. Australians voted against a referendum to replace the monarchy with a president in 1999. Obviously Gillard meant her comments as a gesture of respect to the Queen, but I'm not sure if referring to her eventual demise was the right way to go about it. 

Gillard's suggestion does raise an interesting question about the future of European monarchy though. The current generation of Western European monarchs, while excercising no political power, are accorded a certain amount of public respect largely because they've been around for decades. (Juan Carlos I of Spain: 34 years, Beatrix of the Netherlands: 30 years, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden: 36 years, Elizabeth II of Britain: 58 years) It seems likely that their offsping may have a much harder time convincing their subjects of their continued relevance in today's Europe. That case might be even harder for Prince Charles and Prince William after him, who will technically and anachronistically be the heads of state for 16 independent countries.

The Times of India reports a total of 81 confirmed attacks on Indian citizens, mainly students, in Australia since May 23. The New South Wales state government and police admit a reluctance among Indian populations to report crimes against them, alluding to what is potentially a much larger figure. The attacks are believed to be both "recessionist" and racist in nature. The violence has prompted a patrol of Indian men along Melbourne's suburban train system to protect other Indians from attack.

The attacks were condemned by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last month, who insisted that efforts to make international students feel safer would be undertaken at both the state and national levels. Australia currently plays host to over 93,000 Indian students and its education institutions fear a significant drop in attendees from the sub-continent if the current climate of 'curry-bashing' is not effectively dealt with. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland released figures showing 1,447 reported cases of robbery and assault against Indians in 2008-2009, up from 1,083 the year before.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images

Opium farmers in the Australian state of Tasmania are learning the dangers of leaving their product out in the open:

Wallabies eating in Tasmania's legally grown opium poppy fields are getting "high as a kite" and hopping around in circles, trampling the crops, a state official said.

Tasmania's attorney-general, Lara Giddings, told a budget hearing yesterday that she had recently read about the marsupials' antics in a brief on the state's large poppy industry. Tasmania is the world's largest producer of legally grown opium for the pharmaceutical market.

"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," the Mercury newspaper quoted Giddings as telling the hearing. "Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

Whether the UN wants to treat the problem as an illness or a crime is at this point unknown. 

monkeyc.net/Flickr

Agim Ceku, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army who was attending a conference on demobilizing guerilla movments in Colombia, has been expelled from the country after he was placed on an Interpol "red list" at the request of Serbia:

The director of Colombia's DAS security agency, Felipe Munoz, told the AP that Serbia sought the expulsion after Ceku's arrival for the conference, which was organized by President Alvaro Uribe's peace commissioner and attended by Uribe himself as well as by Guatemala's president, Alvaro Colom.

The Interpol-issued notices alert member nations that a person is wanted for possible extradition but does not force them to arrest or expel the individual. Munoz said Colombian law compelled the Ceku expulsion.

During the 1998-99 Kosovo war Ceku was the military head of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army.

Ceku says Serbia wanted him expelled because he was the "hero of the conference" and getting too much attention. 

This comes two weeks after Interpol redlisted Venezuelan opposition leader Manuel Rosales who has sought refuge in Peru after being charged with corruption by Hugo Chávez's government.

To my mind, these two cases raise the question of whether Interpol is allowing itself to be used by governments to crack down on political opponents. Interpol's constitution states:

It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.

I don't know enough about Ceku or Rosales to form an opinion on their guilt or innocence, but I think it's fairly indisputable that both indictments at least have a "political character." With Chávez requesting that a second political opponent be redlisted, it might be time for the organization to review its procedures.