Morning News Roundup (01 August)

Keep up with the latest news on the Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas conflict with these regularly updating news sources:

• Wall Street Journal
  
• BBC Crisis Map
  
• WaPo -- Latest Headlines | Interactive Updates

Now onto the rest of the day's news:

• The WSJ says the "U.S. and Israel are diverging" over how much longer to keep up the offensive. The Washington Post meanwhile sees "fissures" between the U.S. and its European allies: The U.S. and France have floated competing Security Council resolutions on a cease-fire, with France pushing for an "immediate" one. [Slate's Today's Papers]
  
  
• The Israeli air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana early Sunday morning did more than kill 57 civilians. According to a wide range of commentary in the international media, it inflamed already boiling public opinion in the Arab world against Israel, undermined what little support the United States has among the Lebanese people, and illuminated the continuing inability of Israel and the United States to achieve their goal of decisively weakening Hezbollah.
  
  On Monday, the leading English-language news sites in the Arab world -- including Aljazeera.net, the Jordan Times, the Beirut Daily Star, and the Arab News -- featured photos of rescue workers carrying the dusty bodies of children from the wreckage of a Qana apartment building where they had taken refuge.
  [...]
  Qana was a turning point says the German media,
  
  "At the start of Israel's siege on militants in Lebanon, world opinion tilted toward Jerusalem -- even some Arab governments made hushed noises against Hezbollah," said Spiegel Online. "But after an attack on a Lebanese village killed over 50 civilians on Sunday, that honeymoon is well and truly over, writes the German press." [WaPo - Jefferson Moreley's World Opinion Roundup]
  
  
• The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has expressed its "grave concern" about oil pollution in Lebanese coastal waters. An oil slick caused by Israeli bombing of the Jiyyeh power station now covers 80km (50 miles) of coast. Almost as much oil may have entered the water as during the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker incident in Alaska, which led to widespread ecological damage. [BBC]
  
  
• Violence in Iraq left at least 55 people dead on Tuesday, including at least 23 soldiers. One Iraqi man said, “The government is useless. Only days ago we suffered from a huge blast here. The interior minister has to admit they lost the war against the terrorists.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Eager to reclaim the timetable for nuclear negotiations, the U.S. and other European countries today pushed through a Security Council resolution demanding that Iran cease enrichment by August 31 or face sanctions. Iran had for some weeks successfully stalled on negotiations over its nuclear program, announcing last week that it would reply to the package of nuclear incentives by August 22. But it's unlikely the Islamic Republic will look kindly on this new deadline. [Foreign Policy's Passport]
  
  
• Supporters of Mexico's leftist presidential candidate brought rush-hour traffic to a crawl yesterday, causing the stock market to drop and forcing office workers to hike for miles to work.
  
  The sprawling tent cities in the financial heart of the Mexican capital were another sign that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his supporters won't accept anything less than victory from the top electoral court. [BoGlobe]
  
  
• The ABC television network has pulled a miniseries about the Holocaust it was developing with Mel Gibson's production company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, quoting an unidentified representative for the network.
  
  Gibson was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving early on Friday and was reported to have launched into a tirade against Jews, asking the arresting officer if he was a Jew and blaming the Jews for starting all wars. [Reuters/My Way]
  
  
• Amid the turmoil caused by Argentina's price hikes on its natural gas exports, Chile has announced that it will develop its biofuels industry in order to continue diversifying its energy sources.
  [...]
  Developing agro-energy is a government priority, and the hope is that by 2010 "either biodiesel or ethanol will have some degree of presence in the market," Agriculture Minister Álvaro Rojas told IPS. The biofuels will come mainly from processing maize, beets and rapeseed, he said. [IPS]
  
  
• The AP overstated the extent of the climate agreement announced today between British PM Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (and thus Daily Grist overstated it too). Now that the deal's been officially unveiled, a few clarifications:
  
  The two didn't agree to launch a new trans-Atlantic carbon-trading market, though they will look into the possibility. Rather, they said the U.K. and California would cooperate on research into cleaner fuels and technologies. Writes the San Francisco Chronicle, "aspects of the agreement include jointly studying the economic impacts of global climate change, collaborating on technology research -- including studying the effects of California's effort to create a 'hydrogen highway' touted by Schwarzenegger -- and establishing regular exchanges between scientists in both places." Not so bold, but a nice symbolic gesture at least. [Gristmill]
  
  
• And finally: Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) knows cool. Remarking on primary challenger Ned Lamont’s appearance last night on the Colbert Report, Lieberman said, “I think you can try too hard to be cool and the coolness can come back to hit you in the face.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  That sounds familiar...
  
  Ohio Representative Jean Schmidt (who beat Paul Hackett in a special run-off in 2005, and went onto call Rep. John Murtha a coward): "We have to keep our eye on the ball or the ball will come back to harm us."