Japanese Princess Yuriko, the wife of wartime Emperor Hirohito’s brother and the oldest member of the imperial family, died yesterday after her health deteriorated recently, palace officials said.
She was 101.
Yuriko died at a Tokyo hospital, the Imperial Household Agency said. It did not announce the cause of death, but Japanese media said she died of pneumonia.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Born in 1923 as an aristocrat, Yuriko married at age 18 to Prince Mikasa, the younger brother of Hirohito and the uncle of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, months before the start of World War II.
She has recounted living in a shelter with her husband and their baby daughter after their residence was burned down in the US fire bombings of Tokyo in the final months of the war in 1945.
Yuriko raised five children and supported Mikasa’s research into ancient Near Eastern history, while also serving her official duties and taking part in philanthropic activities, including promotion of maternal and child health.
She outlived her husband and all three sons.
Her death reduces Japan’s rapidly dwindling imperial family to 16 people, including four men, as the country faces the dilemma of how to maintain the royal family while conservatives in the governing party insist on retaining male-only succession.
The 1947 Imperial House Law allows only males to take the throne and forces female royal family members who marry commoners to lose their royal status.
The youngest male member of the imperial family, Prince Hisahito — the nephew of Emperor Naruhito — is the last heir apparent, posing a major problem for a system that does not allow empresses.
The government is debating how to keep succession stable without relying on women.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, visiting South America to attend the APEC and G20 summits, issued a statement expressing “heartfelt condolences.”
“I cannot help but feel saddened to hear of the loss. I extend my heartfelt condolences along with other Japanese citizens,” Ishiba said.
Yuriko had lived a healthy life as a centenarian before having a stroke and contracting pneumonia in March.
She enjoyed exercise in the morning while watching a daily fitness program on television, the Imperial Household Agency said.
She also continued to read multiple newspapers and magazines, and enjoyed watching news and baseball on TV.
On sunny days, she sat in the palace garden or was wheeled in her wheelchair.
Yuriko was hospitalized after her stroke and had been in and out of intensive care since then.
Her overall condition deteriorated over the past week, the Imperial Household Agency said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS