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Japan’s lawmakers committed to nuclear power?

Japan’s redemption ‘emancipation from mental slavery’ Business report, IOL 22 Aug 11William Pesek On a hot Friday evening in Osaka, Japan, street musician Jun Fukuda is channelling Bob Marley on a downtown bridge. Not the feel-good, party-hearty Marley, but the mortality questioning ballad Redemption Song.

As the 20-year-old belts out the lyrics, “emancipate yourself from mental slavery”, he scans the gathering of 20 or so Japanese hipsters to be sure they’re getting the point. “There is no future in Japan for people like me,” Fukuda says. “Our leaders are useless, our economy is bad, there’s nuclear stuff in my food. There is nothing out there for my generation.”……

There’s still hope the events of the past five months will catalyse Japan to reinvent itself. Yet I haven’t found a smidgen of evidence that real change is afoot.

Rather than taking steps to enliven growth, politicians are, as usual, relying on the Bank of Japan to take the lead.

Instead of encouraging fresh alternative-energy research, lawmakers are digging in to protect the primacy of nuclear power…….http://www.iol.co.za/business/opinion/columnists/japan-s-redemption-emancipation-from-mental-slavery-1.1121907

August 22, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general