This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• Farm Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka wrote eight suicide notes apologizing for causing trouble to those close to him, it has been revealed. [Link]
• A former executive of a forerunner to the semi-governmental Japan Green Resources Agency, which is now involved in a bid-rigging scandal, was found lying on the ground of a car park on Tuesday after apparently jumping to his death. [Link]
• Shinzo Abe will become the first Japanese prime minister to address Australia’s Parliament when he visits the country for this year’s APEC meeting in September. [Link]
• The skipper of a fishing boat returns to Hokkaido four months after being taken into custody off Japanese-claimed islands held by Russia. [Link]
• Japan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell in April to 3.8 percent, a 0.2 percentage point improvement on the previous month, according to a preliminary report by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry released Tuesday. [Link]
• The number of measles patients aged over 15 who were reported by medical institutions from May 14 to 20 reached 68, a record high since an institute started collecting data in 1999. [Link]
• The Fukuoka High Court sentenced a former gangster Monday to eight years in prison for attempting to set fire to the home and office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Yamaguchi Prefecture on four occasions in 2000 as well as assisting in a further arson attempt at the location in the same period. [Link]
• Japan’s opposition parties are planning to submit a no-confidence motion against health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa over the pension data fiasco. [Link]
• The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is set to bar gangsters from living in its housing complexes following an incident in which a yakuza holed himself up in his room in a metropolitan apartment block in April. [Link]
• A Hokkaido Prefectural Government official has been arrested for changing the serial number of a lottery ticket to a winning number and unsuccessfully trying to defraud a financial institution out of prize money. [Link]
• The ratio of ex-prisoners with no place to go after completing their sentences has surged in the past 30 years to over 40 percent, according to a survey by a university professor. [Link]
• Japan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday partly dismissed a damages lawsuit against aircraft noise around the U.S. Yokota Air Base, refusing to award compensation for “future noise.” [Link]
• Three performers from the popular “Muscle Musical” show filed a provisional disposition on Monday with the Tokyo District Court against the host company of the musical, demanding payment of a total of 5.12 million yen in cut wages. [Link]
• The body of a woman was found dead on bullet train tracks in Yokohama on Monday after she apparently committed suicide. [Link]
• A group of parents who have lost children to disease plan to visit the Justice Ministry on Thursday to protest a practice by which children who died prior to the digitization of the nation’s family registers are deleted from their parents’ households. [Link]
• NEC Corp. said Tuesday some of its senior employees conducted illicit trades worth a total of 2.2 billion yen in the seven business years through March 31, 2006, enabling them to amass a 500 million yen slush fund which they spent on personal wining and dining. [Link]
• A 71-year-old Japanese mountain climber has become the oldest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. [Link]
• A women’s undergarment company has come up with a surefire way to help voters keep abreast of national politics ahead of July’s House of Councilors vote — an election bra! [Link]
• A 48-year-old primary school teacher in Otake, Hiroshima Prefecture, told an 8-year-old boy, who wanted to go to the restroom, to urinate into a bucket in the classroom, according to the local board of education. [Link]