World Scene

SWITZERLAND

Cell phone link to brain cancer iffy

GENEVA | Cell-phone users worried about getting brain cancer aren’t off the hook yet.

A major international study into the link between cell-phone use and two types of brain cancer has proved inconclusive, according to a report due to be published in a medical journal Tuesday.

A 10-year survey of almost 13,000 participants found most cell-phone use didn’t increase the risk of developing meningioma, a common and frequently benign tumor, or glioma, a rarer but deadlier form of cancer.

There were “suggestions” that using cell phones for more than 30 minutes each day could increase the risk of glioma, according to the study by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. But the authors added that “biases and error prevent a causal interpretation” that would directly blame radiation for the tumor.

GAZA STRIP

Hamas destroys dozens of homes

RAFAH | Wielding clubs, Hamas police beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Sunday before knocking the buildings down with bulldozers, residents said.

Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers said the homes were built illegally on government land. Newly homeless residents were furious over Palestinians on bulldozers razing Palestinian homes.

For years, Palestinians have criticized Israel for destroying houses, mostly because they were built without permits issued by the military. Now, Rafah residents complained, their own government, run by the Islamic militant group Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in July 2007, has done the same.

UNITED KINGDOM

Cameron vows audit, defends plan

LONDON | British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday defended his plans to change the way Parliament works and pledged a full audit of government spending, in his first major interview since taking office.

Speaking to BBC television, the Conservative prime minister also said Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, would be part of his inner circle and have a say in hiring and firing ministers.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats, in coalition with the Conservatives after the May 6 general election failed to produce a clear winner, gave the power-sharing deal strong support at a gathering of the party’s grass roots.

Several lawmakers from both parties in the coalition have expressed concern over Mr. Cameron’s plan to introduce a fixed-term, five-year parliament, with a 55 percent majority of lawmakers needed to dissolve it.

RWANDA

Two dead, 27 hurt in grenade attacks

KIGALI | Two hand-grenade attacks in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, killed two people and wounded 27 others overnight, a police spokesman said on national Radio Rwanda on Sunday.

The attacks are the latest in a wave of violence in the run-up to presidential elections in August after similar attacks had hit Kigali on Feb. 19 and March 4, with two dead and about 20 wounded.

“Around 7 p.m. [on Saturday] a hand grenade exploded in the business district, where 24 people were wounded and another person died,” spokesman Eric Kayiranga said.

“At Nyabugogo [a Kigali district near the bus terminal], another hand grenade exploded, wounding four people,” he added.

Nyabugogo was also the scene of the Feb. 19 attacks.

One of those injured died in a hospital, raising the death toll to two.

SUDAN

Authorities arrest Islamist opposition leader

KHARTOUM | Sudanese authorities on Sunday arrested Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and closed his newspaper, party officials said, sparking a furious reaction from the opposition.

“At around midnight, a group of security officers arriving in three cars came and took Hassan al-Turabi from his home,” his secretary, Awad Babakir, told Agence France-Presse.

In a dawn raid later, authorities confiscated the newspaper of Mr. al-Turabi’s Popular Congress Party and arrested its top editor.

Two other journalists from the paper, Ashraf Abdel Aziz and Dahab Ibrahim, also were arrested, party officials said.

A pro-government press body said intelligence chief Gen. Mohammed Atta al-Moula had suspended the paper’s publication.

He “decided to put under supervision the press and information holdings of the Al-Nadwa company and its daily Rai Al-Shaab,” the Sudanese Media Center reported. The Information Ministry said the action came after the paper published “erroneous” material.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports