Yoshie Koizumi, mother of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, died Tuesday morning of respiratory failure. She was 93.

Yoshie, who had been ill, died at 11:20 a.m. in her hometown of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Plaza Yokosuka in Yokosuka.

Born in 1907, Yoshie married Junya Samejima, a former director general of the Defense Agency who took her family name when they wed. The couple had two sons and four daughters. Prime Minister Koizumi is the eldest son.

Yoshie's father, Matajiro, was a politician who served as the minister of communications.

Toshikuni Yahiro, former president of trading house Mitsui & Co., has died at the age of 86, his family said Monday.

No other details were disclosed.

Hailing from Tokyo, Yahiro became president of Mitsui in 1979 and led the company until stepping down to be chairman in 1985.

Under his leadership, Mitsui joined a huge petrochemical project that was jointly sponsored by the Japanese and Iranian governments. But the project later failed due to the escalation of the Iran-Iraq war, forcing the trading house to liquidate an entity set up to promote the plan.

Yahiro was a senior figure in Japan's business community, serving as vice chairman of the Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) from 1986 to 1992.