Clear trends:

* Southern Europe/Mediterranean/Levantine countries - low suicide rates.

* English-speaking/Northern countries/former Communist block in Eastern Europe/Developed Asian countries - high suicide rates.

Seems to be related to amount of daylight, climate, stress and competition.

I deleted that line, so we don't have to have the world's most boring discussion on HN.

If you follow the "more information" link on Japan, you'll find that the high suicide rate is a recent thing that's happened since the Bubble burst.