Minister Paul Verryn speaks to the Mail & Guardian about his relationship with God, the importance of religion and how his journey has changed.
Former Cosatu general secretary Jay Naidoo has been released from police custody in Swaziland, says the Swaziland Solidarity Network .
Refugee children in downtown Johannesburg couldn’t perform their play about xenophobia in Botswana. Instead they staged a poignant exhibition at home.
Although Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church was an "unsuitable" shelter for children, it was their only option amid a lack of government support.
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/ 29 January 2010
A power struggle in the Methodist Church? A pre-World Cup clean-up cloaked in official hypocrisy? Or the reining in of a gung-ho cleric?
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/ 11 December 2009
The fact that about 2Â 500 Zimbabweans live in the overcrowded Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg is a reflection of their desperation.
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/ 30 October 2009
Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church, which houses over 3 000 Zimbabwean refugees, could face closure.
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/ 15 September 2009
Central Methodist Church teacher is suspended amid claims that children seeking refuge are being forced into sexual acts.
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/ 14 September 2009
Johannesburg police on Monday denied media reports that Zimbabwean children were being sexually abused at an inner-city church.
Two men were arrested on Wednesday night for threatening the life of Methodist bishop Paul Verryn.
The Johannesburg High Court has granted an urgent interdict preventing the relocation of foreigners displaced by xenophobic attacks who are being accommodated at the city’s Cleveland and Jeppe police stations, Lawyers for Human Rights said on Monday.
The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe should be ”comprehensively” abolished, Methodist Bishop Paul Verryn told academics at the University of the Witwatersrand on Wednesday. ”In exactly the same way we pulled down the fences in 1994 and found that instead of restricting, it enabled,” Verryn told a colloquium on xenophobia.
George Mhanda came to Johannesburg to feed his family, struggling to eat under Robert Mugabe’s derelict rule. The Zimbabwean mechanic found a job in a local garage and a room in a small house in Tembisa township, and sent cash home every month.
Anti-immigrant violence has spread to Cape Town, where mobs attacked Somalis and Zimbabweans and looted their homes and shops, police said on Friday. Hundreds of African migrants were evacuated overnight from a squatter camp near Cape Town, the hub of South Africa’s prized tourism industry.
The headlines of the papers at the newsstand at the Bree Street taxi rank on Monday reflect the deadly xenophobic violence that spread around Johannesburg on the weekend. ”Violence flares up,” the Sowetan says. ”Flames of hate” is the headline of both the Star and the Times.
A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through Johannesburg townships on Monday. Mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid-era violence. A total of 22 people have now been killed in the violence directed at immigrants around Johannesburg, which began a week ago.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s deafening silence after weekend elections has raised increasing speculation about the fate of a strongman who has never previously found himself lost for words. Rumours have also been swirling around about him possibly preparing to depart for a foreign country where he will live out his twilight years in exile.
Robert Mugabe’s ruling party is ready for a presidential election run-off between the veteran Zimbabwean leader and his arch-rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, a government spokesperson said on Thursday. ”Zanu-PF is ready for a run-off, we are ready for a resulting victory,” Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said.
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/ 7 February 2008
According to a <i>Finweek</i> report last week, South African education is in crisis mode.
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/ 7 February 2008
Human rights issues concerning refugees, immigrants and exiles needed urgent discussion and action at all three levels of government, experts said on Thursday during a panel discussion at the University of the Witwatersrand. The discussion dealt with the Central Methodist Church raid in Johannesburg as well as the country’s immigration policy.
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/ 6 February 2008
Many Zimbabwean refugees seek shelter at the Central Methodist church in Johannesburg’s CBD, sleeping on stairs and in passageways in the only place they can find free accommodation. Up to 1 500 refugees living on the church premises were arrested in a late-night raid last week to round up illegal immigrants.
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/ 3 February 2008
There are serious legal concerns over the treatment of immigrants who were arrested this week at the Central Methodist church in the Johannesburg CBD, the Legal Resource Centre said on Saturday. Detainees were apparently delayed in receiving medical and legal assistance and were allegedly asked for bribes by police.
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/ 1 February 2008
Church leaders expressed shock and outrage on Friday at a police raid this week on the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg, during which hundreds of immigrants were arrested. Eddie Makue, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, said for many years the Church had welcomed those who had been displaced.
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/ 31 January 2008
Central Methodist Church Bishop Paul Verryn has condemned the heavy-handed way in which police arrested up to 1 500 refugees housed at his church in the Johannesburg CBD. The arrests were made during a late-night raid on Wednesday. The church is seen as a sanctuary for Zimbabwean refugees.
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/ 31 January 2008
South African police have raided a church that was a sanctuary for Zimbabwean refugees, arresting scores of suspected illegal immigrants, the South African Broadcasting Corporation said on Thursday. The raid occurred at about midnight on Wednesday at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, which has become a virtual refugee camp for those fleeing Zimbabwe.