World Briefs

Endurance runner Lisa Smith Batchen likes going to extremes. She has run through Death Valley nine times and raced 241 kilometres across the Sahara Desert.

Now on the verge of her 50th birthday, she's adding altruism to athletics, along with a dash of spiritual uplift from her long-time friend, Sister Mary Beth Lloyd.

Accompanying Ms Smith Batchen as she seeks to become the first athlete to run 50 miles in each of the 50 states, will be Sr Lloyd, a 61-year-old nun with the Religious Teachers Filippini Order in New Jersey who will run-walk in full habit and sneakers.

The goal of the event, dubbed Running Hope through America, is to raise $1 million for orphaned children in Haiti, Africa, Indonesia, South America and the US.

"Sister Mary Beth will be there for the entire run," said Ms Smith Batchen, who has known Sr Lloyd for 25 years. "She's not fit to run this time. But she walks really well."

"I'll be there to support Lisa. I'll be on the crew for her and to speak about the orphans," Sr Lloyd said. (Reuters)

Funeral urns found in Swiss lake

Divers searching for a boat sun-shield that had fallen in Lake Zürich instead discovered 13 funeral urns holding human ashes, Swiss police said.

The Zürich canton's Office for Waste, Water and Energy has lodged a complaint for infringing the peace of the dead.

This kind of mass burial in such a location is "unacceptable", the office spokesman said. "Lake Zürich is our source for drinking water and many people swim in it", he added.

After a similar incident in 2008, regional officials had said the commercial scattering of human ash in the lake, without permission, was liable to a fine of 50,000 Swiss francs (€35,000). (AFP)

Famous mobster killed in jail fight

Australia's most notorious mobster, jailed over a string of gangland killings which captivated the country and left 30 people dead, was himself killed in a prison bashing yesterday, police said.

Carl Williams, a cherubic-faced underworld killer known widely in Australia as Fat Boy, died after he suffered head injuries and went into cardiac arrest at Barwon Prison, south of Melbourne.

Mr Williams, 39, had been serving a 35-year minimum jail term after pleading guilty in 2007 to the murder of three gangland rivals.

Australians have for years been fascinated by the sordid drama involving Mr Williams which played out on Melbourne streets for almost 10 years. The vicious underworld war was fodder for a hit local TV series called Underbelly. (Reuters)

Mount Everest 'Death zone' set for spring cleaning

Twenty Nepali climbers are setting off to Mount Everest this week to try and remove decades-old garbage from the mountain in the world's highest ever clean-up campaign.

Many foreign and Nepali climbers have cleaned Mount Everest in the past but Namgyal Sherpa, leader of the Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, said no one had dared to clean above 8,000 metres, an area known as the "death zone" for the lack of oxygen and treacherous terrain.

Mr Sherpa and his team of seasoned climbers, carrying empty rucksacks and special bags, will risk the zone's thin air and freezing temperatures to pick empty oxygen bottles, gas canisters, torn tents, ropes, and utensils lying between the South Col and the 8,850 metre summit.

"This is the first time we are cleaning at that height, the death zone. It is very difficult and dangerous," said Mr Sherpa, who has climbed Everest, the world's tallest peak, seven times.

"The garbage was buried under snow in the past. But now it has come out on the surface because of the melting of snow due to global warming." (Reuters)

A minute of mayhem for Punk pioneer

British punk pioneer Malcolm McLaren's funeral will be held in London on Thursday, his son said yesterday. The former manager of the 1970s punk band Sex Pistols died earlier this month, aged 64, of a rare form of cancer.

"In celebration of Malcolm's life we are asking people to observe a minute of mayhem at midday on April 22," his son Joseph Corre said.

Mr Corre, also founder of the Agent Provocateur lingerie brand, added: "Put on your favourite records and let it RIP!"

Mr McLaren's funeral cortege will travel through the streets of northern London en route to his final resting place, previously announced as Highgate Cemetery. (Reuters)

'Rats ate your exam papers'

Nepalese university students awaiting results of end-of-year exams may be kept in suspense for a while longer after it emerged that many of their papers had been eaten by rats.

Hundreds of unmarked exam papers from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University were handed to a local police station to be kept under lock and key, but were inadvertently placed in a store room infested with rats.

"The exams were two and half months ago. We kept the answer papers in a secure room. But a few days ago we discovered that some of them had been eaten by rats," said a police inspector. (AFP)