This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• A Diet panel approved a two-year extension on Monday of the Air Self-Defense Force mission in Iraq, brushing off criticism that Tokyo should distance itself from the United States’ increasingly unpopular war there. [Link]
• The city assembly of Tomigusuku in Okinawa Prefecture on Monday called on the education ministry to retract its instructions to publishers of history textbook asking them to modify statements that Okinawa residents were forced by the Japanese military into committing mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa. [Link]
• Japan and Switzerland kicked off free trade talks Monday in Tokyo’s first attempt to sign a bilateral trade agreement with a European country. [Link]
• A severed human right leg was found in the Nihombashi River in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Monday afternoon. [Link]
• More than 40 percent of medical interns and part-time doctors at hospitals work at least 80 hours of overtime a month, a level that puts them at risk of karoshi, or death from overwork, a survey showed. [Link]
• Japanese food and service prices are creeping up, a possible sign that companies are finally starting to pass on higher raw material costs to customers despite overall tame consumer inflation, analysts say. [Link]
• Japan should provide incentives for North Korea as it takes steps toward dismantling its nuclear programs, as agreed to at the last round of six-party talks in February, said Hajime Izumi, a professor at Shizuoka Prefectural University, on Monday. [Link]
• Osaka aquarium’s popular whale shark died late Sunday while being treated at a research institute in Kochi Prefecture. [Link]
• Japanese scientists who want to be in tune with their work can now stand in the eye of a typhoon or observe close-up walls of whirling wind — with the help of some goggles. [Link]
• Hundreds of people of Japanese descent made a 110-meter-long sushi roll on Sunday in celebration of the 110th anniversary of Japanese people’s immigration to Mexico. [Link]
• More than ten million users, or roughly 20% of its total subscriber base, have signed up to NTT DoCoMo’s flat-rate mobile internet access services, the company said in a statement. [Link]
• More than 400 people lined up in the Ginza district of Tokyo on Monday to buy “Dream Jumbo” lottery tickets, which has a first prize of 200 million yen. [Link]
• Nozomi Tsuji’s replacement in the recently formed unit Gyaruru has been decided. The new member is singer Asami Abe, also known for being the younger sister of former Morning Musume member Natsumi Abe. [Link]
• Canned ramen noodles developed by a Tokyo ramen shop owner and a food company have proven far more popular than expected and are in short supply. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• A high school boy brought the severed head of a person to a police station in Fukushima Prefecture this morning, telling officers that he had killed his mother. [Link]
• U.S. and Japanese leaders, discussing North Korea in a phone call Monday, said it was “regrettable” that Pyongyang has not fulfilled its denuclearization commitment made three months ago. [Link]
• Japan’s Empress Michiko, who recently recovered from a stress-related illness, said on Monday she dreamed of becoming invisible so that she could visit exhibitions and browse at bookshops without bothering those around her. [Link]
• Researchers at Gifu University痴 Graduate School of Medicine have developed a robotic patient that can respond verbally to questions about how it feels and move its body in ways that exhibit the symptoms of its ailment. [Link]
• Metabolic syndrome does not seem to have much impact on the rate of mortality, according to research by a team from Jichi Medical University. [Link]
• Famous actor Akihiro Miwa crashed his car into a motorcycle in Tokyo’s Setagaya-ku, leaving the rider injured and not reporting the accident. [Link]
• Two Chinese nationals have been arrested in connection with their bar’s alleged sale of ketamine, an anesthetic that was designated as a narcotic drug earlier this year, violating the Narcotic Control Law. [Link]
• The communications ministry has demanded that Japan Post work out a plan to prevent postal workers from committing crimes, including a numerical target for crime reduction. [Link]
• Princess Aiko, the daughter of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, took a trip to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden today in an excursion with other students from Gakushuin Kindergarten. [Link]
• Okinawa Gov Hirokazu Nakaima said Monday that the situations regarding North Korea and China have kept Japan’s southernmost prefecture as a strategically important location for defense, despite its struggle to reduce the concentrated U.S. military presence there. [Link]
• People who have exhibited abnormal behavior after taking the anti-influenza agent Tamiflu have mostly done so soon after awaking from sleep and have no memory of their behavior, a health ministry-commissioned working group of experts said Monday. [Link]
• Best Western Hotel Tomo, newly renovated and inspired by Japanese pop-culture, is set to open in San Francisco’s Japantown next month. [Link]