Bells for Harvard are consecrated

MOSCOW -- Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II yesterday consecrated 18 newly cast brass bells destined for Harvard University in a trade that will return the originals to Russia nearly 80 years after they were saved from Stalin's religious purges. The originals have hung for decades in the towers at Lowell House and Harvard Business School's Baker Library in Cambridge. American industrialist Charles R. Crane bought the bells from the Soviet government in 1930, saving them from being melted down in purges that left thousands of monks executed and churches and monasteries destroyed or turned into prisons and orphanages. (AP)

JAPAN

TOKYO -- The United Nations atomic agency will send inspectors to Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in the coming weeks to examine reactor damage caused by a magnitude-6.8 earthquake on July 16. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday that the IAEA will consult with Japanese officials on the timing of the visit. The earthquake struck Niigata prefecture in central Japan, killing 10 people and causing contaminated water from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant to escape into the sea and radioactive material to leak from one of its ventilation systems. The plant wasn't designed to withstand such a powerful temblor. (Bloomberg)

PAKISTAN

QUETTA -- A former Guantanamo Bay inmate who led pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan after his release died yesterday when he blew himself up with a grenade to avoid arrest, police said. The death of Abdullah Mehsud is a boost for President General Pervez Musharraf, who faces growing US pressure to crack down on Islamic militants battling security forces on both sides of the Afghan border. (AP)