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In this week’s wrap, South Africa’s genocide case against Israel finally got a response at the ICJ, with the US predictably riding shotgun for Israel. Yes, some people think we should drop the case. But remember when the world showed up for us during apartheid? The UN has since reached the same conclusion as our original filing, while more countries keep joining our case. Meanwhile, Germany quietly left Israel’s corner this week. Turns out we’re on the right side of history on this one.
Meanwhile, Peet and Melanie Viljoen are having a worse week than most. The reality “star couple” are facing criminal charges in the US and could be deported back home, which, given their claims of being “persecuted for being white”, must feel like a particularly cruel plot twist.
We also unpack the Khampepe Commission and why two former presidents want the judge removed. A senior Trump official has resigned over the Iran war. Looks like not everybody’s on board, huh, Donnie? Meanwhile, Timmy Chalamet had a rough night at the Oscars. And that “relaxing” blunt this weekend? You may want to reconsider.
So, let’s dive into these stories and more in this week’s wrap, brought to you by the explain.co.za team. 😄
Format:
▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █BRIEFS
NATIONAL
- Israel has finally filed its response to SA’s genocide case after two deadline extensions. Pretoria is now deciding whether to reply or go straight to oral hearings at the International Court of Justice. Our 2023 case argues Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide – a charge Israel denies, but a conclusion also reached by the UN. Eighteen countries have since joined SA’s application, including Ireland and Spain. Three countries support Israel, including the US, but Germany has had a change of heart. It has withdrawn its support of Israel, German Ambassador Andreas Peschke confirmed to /explain/ on Thursday.
- The ANC in Johannesburg is having a political bunfight, while the city collapses. The party’s regional body tried to recall its underwhelming Mayor Dada Morero, according to a Sunday Times exposé earlier this week. But, get this, it was because they felt he’d undermined the party with proxy court action over an internal party election he’d lost. Not because, you know, the city is falling apart. The national ANC hit back, with secretary-general Fikile Mbalula saying on Wednesday Morero isn’t going anywhere. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. 🥴
- One of the two big probes into police corruption has wrapped up hearings. Parliament’s ad hoc committee, set up alongside the Madlanga Commission after explosive claims by KZN police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, has been hearing testimony since October. Big names included suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu, his predecessor Bheki Cele, and businessman Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala. The committee now has two weeks to compile its report. From there, Parliament can recommend criminal investigations or disciplinary action. The Madlanga Commission, meanwhile, is set to continue until the end of August.
- Your electricity bill is going up… again. Nersa has approved an 8.76% Eskom tariff hike kicking in on 1 April 2026, revised upwards from an initial 5.36% after the electricity regulator corrected errors in its earlier determination. Nersa admits the increases are “unbearable” for households, but says they are the bare minimum to keep Eskom alive. An additional 8.83% hike is already locked in for 2027. With petrol prices also expected to spike thanks to the Iran war, April is nobody’s fool. 😆
- Serial fraudsters and reality stars Peet and Mel Viljoen got their comeuppance in the US. The controversial couple, who fled SA in 2024 amid fraud allegations over their Tammy Taylor salon franchise, were arrested on Thursday in Florida. They allegedly shoplifted more than R87,000 worth of goods from a supermarket by scanning cheaper items. They’re now in ICE custody after overstaying their tourist visas. Peet, who once said he “hated South African black people”, is being held at the notorious Alligator Alcatraz facility. Trump can keep them. 😅
INTERNATIONAL
- The US-Israel war on Iran is entering dangerous new territory. Today Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gasfield – the world’s largest – sending oil prices past $110 a barrel. Iran retaliated by hitting energy facilities in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. More than 1,400 Iranians have been killed since the war began on 28 February. Meanwhile, US national intelligence has undermined Trump’s stated justifications for the war: Iran isn’t close to a nuclear bomb, and won’t have missiles capable of hitting the US before 2035. 🤐
- CAF has shockingly stripped Senegal of its Afcon title two months after the fact. 😲 The Confederation of African Football’s appeals board ruled on Tuesday that Senegal forfeited their 1-0 win over hosts Morocco in January’s chaotic final, after coach Papa Thiaw led players off the pitch to protest a stoppage-time penalty call. The result is now officially recorded as 3-0 to Morocco, leaving fans outraged. Senegal’s football federation is heading to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for an appeal. Messy doesn’t begin to cover it.
- A meningitis B outbreak at the University of Kent has killed two young people and left at least 15 others seriously ill. The cluster, which began last Friday, has spread across a university and three schools in the area. Students queued for antibiotics on campus this week, with thousands more needing contact tracing after visiting a local club. The kicker? The vaccine has been routine for babies since 2015, but today’s uni students were born before it was introduced, and the UK never ran a catch-up campaign. 😳
- A top US official has resigned over the Iran war. National Counterterrorism Centre Director Joe Kent posted on X on Tuesday that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the US, blaming Israeli pressure. He represents a Republican faction dismayed over Trump’s U-turn on keeping the US out of foreign wars. Kent, whose wife was killed while serving in Syria, was swiftly accused of anti-Semitism. It’s worth noting he’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist, with ties to right-wing extremists, but hey, a broken clock is right twice a day.
- Bad news for anyone using cannabis to manage their anxiety: it probably isn’t working. 😬 A major review published this week, described as the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, found very little evidence that cannabis-based medicines effectively treat common mental-health conditions, including anxiety, PTSD, anorexia, and psychotic disorders. Researchers from universities in Australia and the UK led the analysis. They’re not saying never (more high-quality trials are needed), but for now, the science isn’t backing the buzz.
▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ BIG STORIES
1️⃣The Khampepe Commission is turning into a full-blown political food fight
If you thought commissions of inquiry were dignified affairs… welcome to South Africa, where even fact-finding missions come with plot twists.
The Khampepe Commission, set up by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May last year, was meant to answer a pretty serious question: why were apartheid-era crimes that weren’t granted amnesty just… never prosecuted? Instead, it’s now bogged down in legal drama, with two former presidents, the current president, and the commission chairperson all arguing about who gets to lead the inquiry.
The commission is digging into what happened after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which ran from 1996 to 1998. The deal back then was simple: confess your apartheid crimes and you might get amnesty; stay silent, and you could face prosecution. The problem? A lot of those prosecutions never happened, with former president Thabo Mbeki and other senior government figures accused of interfering, a charge they’ve denied.
Now, decades later, families of victims, backed by the Foundation for Human Rights, pushed for answers. Enter retired Constitutional Court Justice Sisi Khampepe, appointed to lead the inquiry.
Khampepe isn’t just any retired judge: she was in the room during the TRC years and later worked at the National Prosecuting Authority during precisely the period under scrutiny.
Mbeki and former president Jacob Zuma argue this creates a conflict of interest. In their view, Khampepe can’t fairly investigate a system she was part of. They’ve gone to court this week to have her removed and, in Mbeki’s case, to potentially wipe out everything the commission has done so far.
Zuma, in classic Stalingrad fashion, alleged behind-the-scenes collusion between Khampepe and the commission’s evidence leader. The court is still deciding what to do about that claim.
Khampepe, for her part, has basically said: nope. She had already dismissed earlier attempts to force her out.
Then, in a twist nobody asked for, Ramaphosa himself asked Khampepe in early March to consider stepping aside, even though he’s the one who appointed her.
She declined.
Now his own commission is arguing in court that his request was “illegal” and “unconstitutional”.
Ramaphosa has since said he wouldn’t oppose Khampepe’s removal if the court orders it, which has not gone down well with victims’ families, or with some commentators, who say it puts him on the same side as Zuma and Mbeki.
While the legal heavyweights argue, families of apartheid-era victims are watching the whole commission wobble.
Some have waited decades for accountability. Now they’re facing the possibility that months of hearings (and at least R55 million in costs) could be scrapped and restarted.
As one family member put it: Why risk forcing people to relive their trauma again?
Either way, the original question – whether prosecutions were deliberately blocked – is still unanswered.
Read our full explainer here.
2️⃣SA sends in the army… again. But what does that say about the police?
South Africa is once again calling in backup – the heavy kind.
Earlier this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa authorised the deployment of 2,200 soldiers to crime hotspots across five provinces: Gauteng, the North West, the Free State, the Western Cape, and the Eastern Cape. The operation, running from the beginning of March this year to the end of March next year, targets gang violence, illegal mining, and organised crime.
On paper, it is about “stabilising” volatile areas. In reality, it raises a tougher question: If the army is needed, what does that say about policing?
Soldiers are not police officers. And that matters.
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) will support the South African Police Service (SAPS) with patrols and raids. But, as legal expert Martin Hood notes, soldiers are not trained in civilian law enforcement. They are not equipped to handle evidence, follow criminal procedure, or manage suspects within constitutional limits.
Put simply, soldiers are trained to neutralise threats. Police are meant to manage them.
That mismatch is where things get complicated.
Research from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) shows that these deployments can work, at least briefly. A visible state presence makes people feel safer. Crime dips. Streets quieten.
Then things return to normal.
Speaking to /explain/, the ISS’s Lizette Lancaster says criminal groups do not disappear: they retreat. When soldiers leave, the criminals return.
On the ground, the impact is real but uneven. In places like Randfontein, residents facing illegal mining say the military presence helps, especially at night. Illegal mining alone costs South Africa about R70 billion a year.
But short-term relief is not long-term change.
Critics argue deploying the army risks masking deeper problems inside SAPS, including weak crime intelligence and poor management. It can look decisive, without fixing the root issues.
In some communities, the challenge runs deeper. Criminal networks are embedded in daily life, sometimes providing food, loans, and protection. In effect, they fill gaps left by the state, making them harder to remove.
There are also risks. During the Covid-19 lockdown, joint SANDF-SAPS operations were linked to the use of excessive force. Without clear oversight, military deployments in civilian spaces can erode public trust.
Meanwhile, the drivers of violence remain. As per official SAPS crime statistics, South Africa recorded 6,351 murders between October and December 2025, an average of 71 a day. Nearly half involved illegal firearms.
That points to a bigger problem: crime is systemic, not temporary.
3️⃣Timothée Chalamet did not have a great Oscars night. Here’s who did.
The 98th Academy Awards on Sunday delivered the usual chaos: surprise wins, emotional speeches, and one very public lesson in “maybe don’t say that out loud”, courtesy of Timothée Chalamet.
Let’s rewind. During a CNN-Variety town hall with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey late last month, the Marty Supreme actor was asked about slow cinema. His answer? A slightly rogue detour. “I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore’.” Oh Timmy! To his credit, he realised almost immediately he’d stepped on a cultural landmine. “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there,” he hastily added. To everyone else’s credit, they did not let it slide.
Enter ballerina Misty Copeland, who calmly reminded the internet that ballet and opera have been going strong for about 400 years and, as a small detail, helped to lay the groundwork for modern acting. Jamie Lee Curtis called the comments “silly”. Jon Stewart declared the art forms victorious in a fictional boxing match. Even Doja Cat briefly got involved. It was, in short, a pile-on with pointe shoes.
By Oscar night, Chalamet wasn’t just a Best Actor nominee for Marty Supreme, he was a one-man culture war. Host Conan O’Brien twisted the knife: security was tight, he joked, due to threats from the opera and ballet communities (and, notably, jazz musicians who felt snubbed).
Chalamet laughed. What else can you do when the entire performing arts industry has you in a group chat?
Then came the actual awards and the real upset. Michael B Jordan took Best Actor for his incredible dual performance in Sinners, becoming only the sixth black man to win the category. In his speech, he paid tribute to Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, and Will Smith, a lineage of heavyweights he now joins.
Another big winner for Sinners was Autumn Cheyenne Durald Arkapaw, who became the first woman of colour to be nominated and the first woman EVER (side eye to the Oscars) to win Best Cinematography. First nomination, first win – all from one film.
Here’s who else walked away with Oscars:
🔹 Best song – Golden from KPop Demon Hunters, which also won Best Animated Feature (Although both groups of winners were rudely cut off mid-speech)
🔹 Best Actress – Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
🔹 Best Picture – One Battle After Another
🔹 Best Visual Effects – Avatar: Fire and Ash
In the end, Sinners took home four Oscars. Marty Supreme took home none. And Chalamet took home… a week he’s probably not rewatching anytime soon.
That’s it from us at The Wrap, an award-winning product of explain.co.za – simple news summaries for busy people. 💁🏾♀
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