Good article in the International Herald Tribune about the increasing suicide rate in South Korea:

In the past 25 years, South Korea has gone from having one of the world’s lower suicide rates to having one of its highest. Although still surpassed by some countries that made up the former Soviet Union, South Korea’s suicide rate ranks among the highest in the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In 2005, South Korea had 24.7 suicides per 100,000 people, according to the Korea National Statistical Office.

In April, Japan announced measures to try to reduce its suicides from a rate of 24.2 in 2005. The rate for the United States in 2002 was 10.2.

The increase in suicides in South Korea has been especially steep in recent years, almost doubling from 6,440 in 2000 to 12,047 in 2005, according to the National Statistical Office.

What is even more troubling about the suicide problem is that many of the suicides are being organized on-line:

The government does not compile figures on how many suicides may have been inspired or aided by the Internet. But in an analysis of 191 group suicides reported in the news media from June 1998 to May 2006, Kim Jung Jin, a sociologist at Korea Nazarene University, found that nearly a third of the cases involved people who had formed suicide pacts through Internet chat sites.

What I find the most troubling about the suicide problem is that so many of them are done by students.  At least according the article the Korean government has finally recognized this problem and taking measures to reverse the trend.