Election officials freed, and other brief reports...

* Painting 'Mandela Day' on his Mercedes-Benz was to remind young lawyers that the profession was not about making money, says Durban attorney Comfort Ngidi. Ngidi, of Ngidi and Partners, painted the words on his personal Mercedes-Benz S-Class and a Ford Ranger belonging to his company on Mandela Day last week. 'A lot of young lawyers are (more) concerned with material gain than actually helping people, which is what the profession is about,' said Ngidi. - City Press * A lieutenant in the DRC army has been arrested for desecrating corpses of rebel fighters. His detention on Thursday evening in eastern DR Congo came a day after the UN chief said he was 'deeply concerned' about allegations of such mistreatment. Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson said the UN mission was reviewing its support of those units suspected of involvement. - BBC News * Kenya has dismissed a UN report which accuses its troops in Somalia of facilitating charcoal exports in defiance of a UN Security Council ban. The report said Kenyan troops helped export charcoal from Kismayo port after militant Islamist group al-Shabab lost control of it in September 2012. The UN banned the export of charcoal from Somalia in February 2012. - BBC News * Lolly Jackson's alleged killer George Louca has failed in his final bid to avoid extradition, and will be bought back from Cyprus to South Africa to stand trial. He's denied killing strip-club boss Jackson - but says he will never reveal who did because doing so could get him killed. - News24 * Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped in Kenya nearly two years ago and held over the border in Somali have been freed. Medecins Sans Frontieres said the two women were both 'safe and healthy and keen to join their loved ones'. Montserrat Serra and Blanca Thiebaut were abducted from Dadaab refugee camp in October 2011. Following their abduction and those of other hostages, Kenya sent troops into Somalia to battle Islamist militants. - BBC News * Attempts by the KwaZulu-Natal Inland Cricket Union to mediate between St Charles College in Pietermaritzburg and the parent of a cricketer who was dropped from the captaincy of the school's first team have failed. The union's president, Yunus Bhamjee, said it was unfortunate that the union had been unable to successfully mediate in the dispute. - The Mercury * A Rastafarian group in South Africa is taking the Democratic Alliance's Mark Wiley to the Equality Court, claiming he unfairly discriminated against the Rasta religion when he criticised a top Cape Town policeman for publicly displaying a dagga emblem on his shirt. The complaint relates to Wiley's call for Mitchells Plain police cluster commander Jeremy Veary to be disciplined for wearing a shirt with the image of a dagga leaf and the word 'Rastafari', at a public rally. - Cape Argus * A new privately-owned television station began broadcasting in Zimbabwe last week, hoping to provide an independent voice ahead of elections. Spokesperson for 1st TV, Temba Hove, said the station would broadcast 'impartial, factual news to the people of Zimbabwe as well as popular soap operas and comedies'. Political rivals have long complained that the domestic media is used to puff up Mugabe and denigrate his opponents. - News24 * Ex-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, the city within a city from which he orchestrated eccentric defiance of Western powers and disdain for his own people for four decades, is to be turned into a public park. The sprawling 6km² Bab al-Aziziya complex once housed a swimming pool, sports pitches, senior officials' villas and gardens as well as an underground bunker, government offices and buildings belonging to the feared and pervasive security apparatus. - News24