Today’s Japan-related news links:

• Promotion-chasing ozeki Hakuho zeroed in on his second straight Emperor’s Cup and moved a step closer to realizing his yokozuna dream by blowing away Kotomitsuki at the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament on Friday. [Link]
• Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said Friday that Japan needs cluster bombs for national defense, emphasizing the Self-Defense Forces would not use them for attacking other countries. [Link]
• China and Japan held “conducive” discussions during the eighth round of talks on the East China Sea issues in Beijing on Friday, agreeing to hold fresh talks in late June. [Link]
• - Japan is adding environmental awareness and a bit more comfort in the latest version of its celebrated bullet train which comes into service in July. [Link]
• Angry Japanese day workers are demanding reimbursement of dubious fees their staffing agencies claim were paid on a voluntary basis for insurance, data management and other purposes. [Link]
• An aging Japan is cautiously warming to foreign workers, reports the Wall Street Journal. [Link]
• Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Latvia Friday, on the third leg of a 10-day tour of European countries. [Link]
• To deal more harshly with children who commit serious crimes, Japan’s Diet on Friday enacted a revised Juvenile Law that allows courts to send minors as young as 12 years old to juvenile reformatories. [Link]
• A Japanese administrative scrivener who received payments for processing paperwork for a South Korean broker who arranged fake marriages has been arrested. [Link]
• The Foreign Ministry said Friday 200 high school students from China will make a nine-day visit to Japan from Wednesday as part of Tokyo’s initiative to broaden exchanges among youths in East Asia Summit member nations. [Link]
• Japan plans to expand its agricultural exports to 8.3 billion US dollars by 2013. The figure is three times the present trade volume. [Link]
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged people planning to visit Japan to pay attention to the ongoing measles outbreak in the Kanto region. [Link]
• Microsoft Office still Japan痴 defacto standard suite, according to a recent japan.internet.com survey. [Link]
• Sacha Baron Cohen’s is finally landing in Japan. [Link]
• A female driver who drunkenly bit a police officer on the leg after officers stopped and questioned her on a road in Aichi has been arrested. [Link]
• The wife of a Japanese firefighter has been arrested for setting fire to a vacant house here in the predawn hours of Friday, burning down half of the structure. [Link]
• A 79-year-old man in Oita Prefecture who was ordered to appear in a summary court on a drink-driving charge faces new charges for driving to the court under the influence of alcohol. [Link]