This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• China overtook Japan as Asia’s biggest arms spender in 2006 as global military expenditures grew 3.5 percent to US$1.2 trillion, a Swedish research institute said Monday. [Link]
• Social Insurance Agency offices failed to pay correct pension amounts on 320 cases in 2005 and 2006, but announced only about a half of them to the media, it was learned on Tuesday. [Link]
• A recent survey has revealed that 29% would vote for the opposition Minshuto, while only 23% would vote for the ruling LDP if an election were held today. [Link]
• Yoshiaki Murakami, a former investment fund manger, expressed confidence that he will be cleared of insider trading when a court hearing closed Tuesday, saying he is “not a person who breaks the law intentionally.” [Link]
• Japan has agreed to offer direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, but will send it to president Mahmud Abbas and not Hamas militants. [Link]
• Nichii Gakkan Co., the nation’s largest nursing-care provider, will offer to buy Comsn Inc.’s core operations, while other firms are targeting the leftover pieces of the scandal-plagued company. [Link]
• A drunk driver who crashed into a car, knocking it off a bridge into the sea and killing its three child passengers, denied the serious charge of dangerous driving during a hearing on Tuesday. [Link]
• U.S. activist investor Warren Lichtenstein, of Steel Partners Japan Strategic Fund, defended a slew of takeover bids in Japan and criticized the spread of antitakeover mechanisms at a press conference aimed at rebuffing accusations from Japanese that his fund engages in unscrupulous investing. [Link]
• Japanese farmers have held a protest rally in the centre of Tokyo over a proposed free trade agreement with Australia. [Link]
• Who will be Japan’s next Prime Minister? Japan blogger Ampontan is putting his money on Foreign Minister Taro Aso. [Link]
• Newsweek on Japan’s unemployed youth: On a recent Sunday, thousands of young people from across Japan rallied in central Tokyo, fighting for an unexpected cause in a city known for political apathy. [Link]
• Temperatures reached more than 30 degrees Celsius in several towns and cities in Hokkaido, northern Japan, on Tuesday. [Link]
• Crown Prince Naruhito, who underwent endoscopic surgery to remove a benign duodenal polyp last week, was released from hospital and returned to his residence in Tokyo on Tuesday. [Link]
• Masami Nagasawa has emerged as the most popular female celebrity that men want to marry, while women in Japan favor singer Masaharu Fukuyama, a survey conducted by music information provider Oricon has shown. [Link]
• Japanese pop artist Namie Amuro is set to debut as a voice actress in the computerized anime “The World of Golden Eggs,” which has gained popularity on MTV and other media. [Link]
• Former major leaguer Warren Cromartie is hoping his aggressive style of play on the baseball diamond will translate into success in the Japanese wrestling ring. [Link]
• The remains of a Japanese mountaineer, who lost his life 26 years ago while scaling Gongga Shan in 1981, was found and identified with his belongings at the Swallow Valley of the mountain in China’s western province of Sichuan. [Link]
• An Osaka junior high school teacher in charge of its soccer club forced several players to run naked around the ground as punishment for missing penalty kicks during practice, it has been learned. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• Japan will make further efforts to fight against global warming by reviewing its plan to achieve goals under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and aiming at halving global greenhouse gas emissions from the current levels by 2050, a revised draft of the government’s economic and fiscal policy guidelines showed Tuesday. [Link]
• Most of Japan’s bays are hit with red tides or contaminated with toxic substances and need detailed checkups, a study showed Tuesday. [Link]
• The Metropolitan Police Department will seek arrest warrants for the wives of two members of a radical group that hijacked the Japan Airlines jet “Yodo” in 1970 on suspicion of their involvement in the abduction of two Japanese nationals to North Korea in 1980. [Link]
• Comedian-turned Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru has expressed hope that former comedian Keiichi Yamamoto will return to an amateur baseball club from which he had been expelled after he faced rape charges last year. [Link]
• Japan’s foreign minister on Tuesday rejected a 16-year-old’s impassioned plea to have a passport embossed with her father’s surname, not that of her mother’s abusive former husband. [Link]
• A high school girl who gave birth to a baby boy in the restroom of her school in Niigata and drowned him in a basin has been arrested for murder. [Link]
• Police searched the offices of two gangs affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate in Sapporo on Tuesday on suspicion of swindling more than 60 people in the Tokyo area out of a total of 100 million yen through phone scams. [Link]
• Justice Minister Jinen Nagase has again refused to recognize an Afghan man as a refugee even though a court ruled he deserves such status, according to the man’s lawyer. [Link]
• Japan intends to begin negotiations with the United States shortly to ease its restrictions on U.S. beef imports in the wake of an international animal health organization’s recent decision to allow exports of American beef irrespective of cattle age. [Link]
• Sumo wrestler Kotomitsuki may never get a better–or another–chance than the upcoming Nagoya basho to finally shed his reputation as the “ozeki who never was.” [Link]
• A 31-year-old Japanese woman, who studies at a French university, was listed in critical condition Tuesday after having been found seriously injured and unconscious by a passerby late Monday. [Link]
• Fisheries minister Norihiko Akagi said Tuesday the ministry aims to step up efforts to promote development of more reliable eel farming techniques in view of the European Union’s decision the day before to sharply restrict the European eel fry catch. [Link]
• A Belarusian woman died Tuesday after falling from a building at the Russian trade representative’s office in Minato Ward, Tokyo. [Link]
• Japan’s domestic shipments of beer and beerlike beverages rose in May for the first time in four months thanks to a rise in “third-category” beer, industry data showed Tuesday. [Link]
• A family of four defectors from North Korea seeking asylum met Tuesday with consular officials at the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo, apparently to communicate their desire to go to South Korea. [Link]
• Toyota Motor Corp said Tuesday it has developed new technology to improve the fuel economy of gasoline-powered engines by 5-10 percent with a view to putting it to practical use in new 2-liter engine car models. [Link]
• Two female doctors from the war-torn Iraq city of Fallujah started a 100-day training program this week at Toho University School of Medicine in Tokyo. [Link]
• The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about the U.S Military’s establishment of secret a Japanese language school to train military interrogators and translators, which began several months before the outbreak of war with Japan in 1941. [Link]
• A small Japanese company has come up with an answer to a problem people have been dying to solve for centuries — how to stop graves tumbling to the ground after earthquakes. [Link]
• On June 11, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) released photographs of a mysterious deep-sea creature believed to be an unknown species of comb jelly, or ctenophore, a jellyfish-like marine animal. [Link]
• A J. League soccer player was arrested Wednesday for having sex with a high school girl in Shizuoka Prefecture. [Link]
• Young actor Kazuki Enari is suing the publishers of two tabloids, Nikkan Gendai and Naigai Times, for defamation of character. Both magazines ran a story in April claiming that the actor was visiting a brothel in Tokyo every night. [Link]