The hanging death of the farm minister this week grimly underscored the country's stubbornly high suicide rate — and the government's struggle to discourage large numbers of Japanese from killing themselves.
Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, hanged himself Monday just before he was to face questioning in the Diet over a series of scandals that have rocked the government since he took office last September.
With that act, Matsuoka became one of the more than 30,000 Japanese who kill themselves every year — the second-highest suicide rate in the industrialized world. Japan's suicide rate per 100,000 people stood at 25.5 in 2003, compared with Russia's 38.7, according to World Health Organization figures.