This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by prominent English language school NOVA and ordered the group to return about 300,000 yen in prepaid tuition fees to a student who cancelled a contract. [Link]
• Japanese investment in China fell 29.6% from a year earlier as companies which had continued heavy investment in the country over the past three years slowed their pace, a Japanese trade organization said in a report issued recently. [Link]
• Four people have been found dead in the home of a Japanese family in Christchurch that was burned down in a fire on Monday, newspapers in New Zealand reported on Tuesday. [Link]
• Japan will study the pros and cons of a free trade agreement with the United States and is ready to restart FTA talks with South Korea, cabinet ministers said Tuesday following a deal Washington and Seoul struck Monday. [Link]
• Viewer ratings for the opening broadcast of the new NHK drama, “Dondo-bare,” were a record low of 14.9 percent in Kanto and 14.2 percent in Kansai, ratings firm Video Research said. [Link]
• The New York Times has reported that relatives of Japanese-Americans interned during World War 2 have joined with Muslim groups to fight a court decision from last June which ruled that the U.S. government had wide latitude to detain noncitizens indefinitely on the basis of race, religion or national origin. [Link]
• A 3-year-old girl died after falling from the balcony of her home in Osaka on Monday while her parents were out playing pachinko. [Link]
• Nearly 10 percent of students at prefectural high schools across Japan are receiving reductions in lesson fees or exemptions from paying the fees under local government guidelines for low-income families, a government survey has shown. [Link]
• Tokoha Gakuen Kikugawa of Shizuoka Prefecture won the 79th National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament by beating Ogaki Nichidai of Gifu Prefecture 6-5 in the final on Tuesday. [Link]
• North Korea on Tuesday condemned Japan for its recent modifications in history textbooks which delete or downplay Japan’s wartime atrocities. [Link]
• A plane carrying Japan’s finance minister made a safe emergency landing Tuesday in the southern city of Fukuoka after a problem with its engine. [Link]
• The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has decided to continue its system of disposing of surplus vegetables, which it had tried to revise due to criticism from consumers, saying no effective alternatives were found. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• A moderate earthquake jolted Tottori Prefecture early this morning, and was measured at 3.7 on the open-ended Richter scale. There was no report of casualties or damage to property. [Link]
• McDonald’s Holdings Co Japan said Tuesday its monthly sales hit 43.05 billion yen in March ・the highest level in the company’s 36-year history. [Link]
• It has been revealed that a laboratory headed by a professor who testified to a government panel that there is no causal relationship between the influenza drug Tamiflu and abnormal behavior has received donations from a company that imports and sells the drug. [Link]
• More than 90 percent of women with children of primary school age or older would like to work outside the home, but only half of them do, according to a survey released by the Cabinet Office on Tuesday. [Link]
• A drunk junior high school teacher has been arrested for exposing his private parts to a man at a convenience store in Kanagawa late Tuesday night. [Link]
• Kanagawa prefectural police on Wednesday arrested a 24-year-old cram school teacher for kidnapping two elementary school pupils. The teacher told the police that he took the two kids for an 8-hour drive with him “because they were cute.” [Link]
• A team of Tokyo-based researchers said Wednesday they have detected a virus resistant to antiviral drug Tamiflu from the B strain of influenza and that such a virus has been spreading among people. [Link]
• Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday explained to U.S. President George W Bush over the phone that he stands by a 1993 government apology over the military’s sexual exploitation of Asian and other women, as the U.S. Congress debates a resolution seeking an apology from Tokyo. [Link]
• The South Korean press is worried that the just-concluded FTA with the U.S. could lead to tariff-free Japanese cars produced in America “devasting” the domestic Korean car industry. [Link]
• Japanese auto makers are driving Americans toward a cleaner environment, while their U.S. counterparts are producing cars and trucks ranked among the worst when it comes to smog emissions and global warming, according to a report released Tuesday by an environmental group. [Link]
• A French train has set a new conventional rail speed record: 574.8 kph. However, it fell short of the ultimate record set by Japan’s non-conventional magnetically levitated train, which sped to 581 kph in 2003. [Link]
• New information on the murder of Lindsay Ann Hawker has been posted at the bottom of the special post for that topic. [Link]