An off-the-cuff remark about never paying for rice has cost Japan’s agriculture minister his job, as pressure mounts on the government to solve the nation’s rice crisis.

Taku Eto resigned on Wednesday, telling reporters that he had concluded he was “not the right person for this role” after sparking a public backlash by saying that he had “so much rice at home that (he) could sell it.”

The cost of rice – Japan’s prime staple food – has become a major political issue, with prices surging to record highs this year and the government taking the rare steps of releasing emergency reserves and importing foreign rice.

Eto’s gaffe could not have come at a worse time for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government, which was already suffering from low approval ratings due to spiraling cost of living, weeks ahead of an election.

“I have never bought rice myself. Frankly, my supporters give me quite a lot of rice. I have so much rice at home that I could sell it,” Eto said in a speech over the weekend, drawing the ire of the public.

He later clarified he did buy his own rice and said he “deeply regretted” his comments.

“I made an extremely inappropriate remark as the minister responsible. For that, I apologize once again to the people of Japan,” Eto said Wednesday after tendering his resignation.

He added that he “fully recognized” the hardship people are facing due to soaring rice prices.

A major threat

Frustrations over the rising cost of living in Japan is shaping up to be a major threat for Prime Minister Ishiba and his Liberal Democratic Party as the country heads to the polls for upper house elections in July.

The latest approval ratings for Ishiba’s cabinet slipped to 27.4%, a record low, according to a poll by Japanese news agency Kyodo released on Sunday. Almost one in nine of the households surveyed said the government’s efforts to rein in rice prices had been insufficient.

Ishiba’s party, which has ruled Japan for almost all of its post-war history, suffered a crushing defeat in last year’s lower house election, but he held on to power by seeking support from minor parties.

Further defeat in the coming elections could threaten his coalition’s rule and spark calls for a new leader.

Rice price stubbornly high

Despite the government’s attempts to bring them down, rice prices in Japan have remained stubbornly high – almost twice what they were a year ago.

The average retail price of rice rose to 4,268 yen ($29.4 US) per five kilograms in the second week of May, reversing a brief decline in 18 weeks recorded in the previous month, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Earlier this year, it took the rare step of putting hundreds of thousands of tons of rice from its emergency reserves up for auction, in a bid to drive down prices. Multiple auctions have since been scheduled until July, with hundreds of thousands of tons of rice being released.

Japan, which takes deep pride in its homegrown rice, has also scaled up imports of rice from overseas, mainly from the US. In April, it also imported South Korean rice for the first time since 1999.

Dealing with the rice crisis is now the job of Shinjiro Koizumi, a former environment minister and son of a former Japanese Prime Minister, who Ishiba has appointed to head the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

“I have instructed Mr. Koizumi to make strong efforts to supply rice to consumers at a stable price, especially in light of the current high rice prices,” Ishiba said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Kursk for the first time since Moscow claimed to have completely recaptured the region following a surprise incursion by Ukrainian forces last year, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

Putin met with municipal leaders in the city of Kurchatov and visited the Kursk nuclear power plant, which is currently under construction, the Kremlin said, according to TASS.

Video footage posted by Russian state media showed Putin dressed in a suit speaking with what appeared to be local volunteers.

The news agency did not report when the visit took place.

Last August Ukraine launched a shock incursion into Kursk, swiftly capturing territory in what was the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II.

Since then, Russia, with support from North Korean soldiers, has been fighting to oust Ukraine’s forces from its borders, while Kyiv poured precious resources into holding onto its territory there, with the view of using it as a key bargaining chip in any peace talks.

Putin claimed last month that Russian forces had recaptured Kursk and said North Korean soldiers took part in the fighting to recover territory in the region.

Kyiv has insisted its troops are fiercely battling to preserve their foothold in the territory.

Last week Ukraine said it is still pursuing the ground war inside Russia.

“We are continuing our active operations in the Kursk and Belgorod regions – we are proactively defending Ukraine’s border areas,” President Zelensky said in his nightly address last Wednesday.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa will hold crucial talks at the White House with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday in a high-stakes meeting that could improve or deteriorate already frosty relations between the nations.

Ramaphosa is hopeful his visit could end a diplomatic feud that sparked aid cancellations by Trump and fueled the expulsion of his nation’s ambassador to the US.

There are also fears that the African nation could now potentially lose some of its US trade privileges as relations between the two countries sour.

Ramaphosa’s trip comes just over a week after a group of 59 White South Africans arrived in the US after being granted refugee status.

Trump and his ally Elon Musk, who was born and raised in the country, claimed the South Africans were being persecuted back home. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was in the US national interest to prioritize White South Africans for refugee resettlement, telling a hearing that they’re “a small subset” who “are easier to vet.”

The Trump administration has sharply criticized an expropriation law, which was enacted in South Africa earlier this year. The law empowers South Africa’s government to take land and redistribute it with no obligation to pay compensation in some instances.

Trump claimed that lands belonging to South Africa’s minority Whites, who own 72% of the nation’s agricultural land, were being targeted for confiscation, and cited unverified claims that “a genocide is taking place” in South Africa. He added that “White farmers are being brutally killed” amid reports of farm attacks.

Trump also disapproves of South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice against the US ally Israel.

Ramaphosa’s office said he would “discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of interest” with the US president at the White House. Analysts say the meeting could pose a tipping point for their fraught ties.

The US is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner, and the African nation benefits the most from a US trade agreement that provides preferential duty-free access to US markets for eligible sub-Saharan African nations.

Under that agreement, South Africa is the main agricultural exporter and exports two-thirds of its agricultural goods to the US, tariff-free. But some US lawmakers want those benefits withdrawn when the trade agreement is reviewed this year.

‘A tricky place to be’

South African researcher Neo Letswalo describes the anticipated meeting as “make-or-break” and one that requires “supreme negotiation tactics” by Ramaphosa.

The South African leader is set for a tight rope walk at the White House, he added, reminiscing about a shouting match that broke out in the Oval Office between Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late February.

He believes that “Ramaphosa would maintain his composure to iron out some of the misunderstandings that Trump’s administration officials have about South Africa.”

Other analysts, such as Christopher Afoke Isike, who is a professor of African politics and international relations at the University of Pretoria, believe that Ramaphosa can pull through, “considering the fact that he’s a businessman president like President Trump.”

Ramaphosa plans to soften the ground with a potential licensing deal for Starlink, a satellite internet service owned by Musk, Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya told Reuters Monday.

What could go wrong?

For Letswalo, the crucial talks between Trump and Ramaphosa could hit a brick wall if the White House makes costly demands.

“A dealbreaker would be a request by Washington for Pretoria to retrieve the Land Expropriation Act or Gaza Case in order to continue the US-SA relationship,” he said, adding, “it would be interesting to see how President Ramaphosa maintains the sovereignty and his statement of ‘not going to be bullied by America’, without compromising the pre-existing relationship with the US.”

That task could be one of Ramaphosa’s most challenging, according to André Duvenhage, a politics professor at South Africa’s Northwest University.

“This may be his single biggest challenge in terms of anything he had to deal with in his term as president of the Republic of South Africa.”

The radio crackled, but the order barked into it was clear: Capture the commander and kill the others.

The chilling exchange was part of a series of radio transmissions between Russian forces that Ukrainian officials say provide further evidence that Russian superiors are ordering soldiers to execute surrendering Ukrainian troops in violation of international law.

Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said the radio transmissions and drone footage suggest the killing of surrendered soldiers by Russian forces, as has been reported by the UN.

Tidball-Binz, who has investigated similar suspected executions, called such incidents “grave breaches” of international law, adding that he believes this conduct could only be authorized by the highest authorities in Russia.

They “would not happen with such numbers and frequency without orders – or at the very least consent – from (the) highest military commanders, which in Russia means the Presidency,” he said.

Russian officials have previously denied that Russian troops have committed war crimes and insisted that Russia treats prisoners of war in accordance with international law.

The alleged executions of prisoners of war, among other widespread charges that Russian military forces are responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, could complicate efforts by US President Donald Trump to bring a swift conclusion to the war. Trump has sought to end the fighting with an erratic approach that has often seen him side with Russian President Vladimir Putin and saw his administration briefly interrupt a State Department initiative to track alleged war crimes by Moscow.

The official said he was examining similar material from other cases, which “strengthen the evidence of a directive from Russian commanding officers to kill Ukrainian soldiers who have surrendered or are in the process of surrendering.”

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office said it has, as of May 5, opened 75 criminal investigations into the suspected executions of 268 Ukrainian prisoners of war. It said the number of alleged executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war has been rising, with eight cases involving 57 soldiers in 2022, eight cases involving 11 soldiers in 2023, 39 cases with 149 soldiers in 2024, and 20 cases so far this year, with 51 soldiers.

Yurii Bielousov, head of the war crimes department at the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office, said the rise was attributable to “instructions being given by top leaders of the Russian Federation, both political and military. We didn’t yet see a written order, but we had several examples of oral orders.”

Bielousov noted that Putin had said in March that Ukrainian soldiers captured in Russia’s Kursk region should be treated as terrorists. “Everyone knows how Putin treats people who they call terrorists. So, it’s almost a synonym for us to execute,” he said.

Bohdan Okhrimenko, head of the secretariat at Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said another possible explanation for the killings was that the Russian military wanted to avoid the logistical issues of capturing and managing prisoners. “It complicates military logistics, from their point of view. The Russian command made a simple decision… to shoot captured prisoners.”

‘Take the commander captive and kill everyone else’

The Ukrainian intelligence official shared a transcript of the radio transmissions, which noted they were intercepted at 12:05 p.m. local time, when the Ukrainian position was stormed, and continued until 12:31 p.m., when apparent fears over a Ukrainian drone arriving causes the Russian commander to order a retreat.

The Russian commander can be heard ordering the killings on six separate occasions. According to the transcript of the intercepted transmissions, the commander’s first order was given at 12:22 p.m.

“Ask who is the commander. Who is the commander? Ask. Take the commander captive and kill everyone else,” he can be heard saying.

Four minutes later, he repeats the order twice.

“You do it. Take the commander captive, f**k off the others.”

“That’s it. Take the senior, get rid the f**k of the others!”

The commander frequently demands updates from his combat unit, who struggle to reply. “Someone, b*tch, answer, are the f**kers surrendering or not?”

The soldier referred to by the callsign “Arta,” who appears to be the main interlocutor, says they have not found a Ukrainian commander, only a “senior.”

At 12:28 p.m., the order is given on the radio a sixth time, and a soldier wearing a mask and a dark green uniform consistent with the Russian military can be seen emerging from the foliage, moving towards the captives.

“Get the f**k out! Take the senior, get rid of the others, f**k!” the commander said.

One Ukrainian soldier is visible in the grainy footage apparently gesturing to the Russians. Moments later, the masked soldier shoots him in the head. The voice of the Russian commander captured on the transmissions then asks if the killing is complete.

“Did you take them down? A question. Did you take them down? A question.”

“Arta! Arta! I’m Beliy, roger that!”

“We killed the f**king others.”

In the footage, another Ukrainian, presumably the commander who was motionless until that point, stands up, removes his body armor and is led away. The Russian commander radios his concern as a drone is seen rising over the smoke from an explosion. A retreat is then ordered.

The killing of surrendering Ukrainian troops is alleged by Ukrainian officials and international experts to be part of an orchestrated Russian policy. The incident appears to be one of the first times that intercepted radio transmissions have been linked to drone footage of a suspected execution.

Ukrainian officials claim the alleged executions are fueled by Russia’s cultural hatred of their opponents but are also meant for psychological impact. Okhrimenko said Russian soldiers had posted videos of the beheading and castration of Ukrainian troops to affect morale.

“Violence breeds violence,” he said, adding that Ukraine had increased training of its personnel to be sure Russian prisoners were held safely for later exchanges.