This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• Mongolian ozeki Hakuho defeated komusubi Toyonoshima to remain undefeated and moved into a two-way share of the lead with yokozuna Asashoryu on the ninth day of action at the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament on Monday. [Link]
• Japan plans to unveil a proposal later this week for a new global framework on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from 2013. [Link]
• The Kanagawa prefectural police and the Maritime Self-Defense Force police investigating a case of leaked information involving highly confidential data on the Aegis defense system have found that the highest level of information connected to sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors developed by the United States had also been leaked. [Link]
• A court on Monday handed a 57-year-old man a suspended sentence for threatening to kill House of Representatives member Yukari Sato if she ran from a local electoral district in the next general election. [Link]
• Japanese social networking site Mixi announced today that as of the 20th, it has topped 10 million users. [Link]
• Waseda University decided to call off all of its classes for nine days from Monday until May 29 at most of its campuses following an outbreak of measles among students. [Link]
• Local governments across Japan began on Monday to accept registrations for children that women gave birth to within 300 days of divorce as the children of their new husbands as long as the women can prove they became pregnant after getting divorced. [Link]
• A man in Toyama Prefecture who was wrongly imprisoned for rape says he won’t rest until he learns why police targeted him and lied at every step of the investigation. [Link]
• Nippon Life Insurance Co., Japan’s largest life insurer, uncovered at least 100 dubious and fictitious contracts, most of which were created by sales staff trying to reach their quotas. [Link]
• Roughly 40 percent of nursing care license holders have turned down work in the industry because of low wages and poor working conditions, a survey conducted by Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has suggested. [Link]
• The Chiba District Court on Monday sentenced a man to death and two others to life imprisonment over the deaths of four people in 2004 following a split in a billing fraud ring to which the defendants and their victims belonged. [Link]
• The fate of the 21-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling is a numbers’ game played at the annual International Whaling Commission meeting — and this year Japan is still short of votes in its drive to overturn the ban. [Link]
• Top kabuki actor Kanzaburo Nakamura has been fined 30 million yen for apparently not accurately declaring his income. [Link]
• Japan’s Government says it will not respond to a proposal by Australia’s Labor Party to use the Australian Navy to monitor Japanese whaling ships. [Link]
• An employee of the Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Bank was sent to prosecutors on Monday for molesting a female university student who was looking for a job with the bank. [Link]
• Comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto’s directorial debut, “Dainipponjin,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night, and representatives are reporting that the film has already received distribution offers from ten different countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• The approval rating for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet, which had been on the decline since its inauguration in September, rebounded for the first time by 5.8 percentage points from the previous survey in March, to 49.6 percent, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey. [Link]
• An organofluoric compound suspected of causing cancer is polluting water throughout Japan, particularly around the city of Osaka, where high concentrations have been detected in people’s blood. [Link]
• It has been revealed that Aichi Prefectural Police were preparing to storm the home of a former gangster who had holed himself up before he unexpectedly surrendered on Friday night. [Link]
• Japan’s Emperor Akihito has arrived in Sweden to join in festivities marking 300 years since the birth of Carl Linnaeus. [Link]
• Ministers and senior officials from the United States, Japan and three other nuclear powers said Monday they have agreed to join forces in controlling and managing nuclear enrichment technology and nuclear fuel distribution. [Link]
• A newborn baby girl was found alive in a plastic bag at a garbage collection site on the premises of a Tokyo apartment complex this morning. [Link]
• The U.N. Committee against Torture unveiled a report Monday advising Japan to reform its “substitute prison” system as part of its concluding observations on human rights reports from Japan and six other countries. [Link]
• A financially troubled traditional brewery known for its “Onikoroshi” (“Devil Killer”) brand of sake is set to come under the umbrella of a major food company. [Link]
• The Fukuoka Legal Affairs Bureau has admitted violating the human rights of a middle school student who committed suicide, and has issued instructions to the school’s former principal and two teachers to reflect on their behavior. [Link]
• A technical error was responsible for a 90-second suspension of service by Nippon Television Network (NTV) late Monday. [Link]
• Recent research by the Forestry Agency has found that work has not progressed to allow the nation’s forests to be recognized as absorbers of carbon dioxide under the international framework to cut greenhouse gas emissions. [Link]
• Japan Sumo Association Chairman Kitanoumi declined to comment Monday regarding an article in weekly tabloid magazine Shukan Gendai claiming that ozeki Hakuho’s stable elder played the role of mediator in fixing matches. [Link]
• The number of foreign students in need of Japanese-language instruction in 885 municipalities exceeded 20,000 as of 2005, and the figure continues to increase, a government survey has found. [Link]
• Five major domestic carmakers said Monday they recovered in the business year through this March usable materials from unwanted car residue in excess of the 70% target they are required by law to meet by 2015. [Link]
• A new blue label for seafood has made its debut at a store in Tokyo Midtown to indicate that the items carrying it contain marine products caught in consideration of the protection of fisheries resources and the marine ecosystem. [Link]
• Japan’s household consumption of seafood may be surpassed by meat consumption in the near future due partly to rising fish prices and a growing taste for easy-to-cook meat, according to a government report released today. [Link]
• In Japan’s crowded cities, it’s important for quality of life to have friendly neighbors, but it’s quite common to be lumbered next to a nuisance, according to Shukan Bunshun. [Link]