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Residents in the radiation danger zone, instructed to stay inside their homes, are venturing out in search of food and fuel. A Japanese businessman in the country's northeast tells Joan Juliet Buck how government incompetence is killing people who escaped the earthquake.

Writer, cultural critic, and actor Joan Juliet Buck wrote to a foreign-born Japanese friend in the food business to ask him how we in America could help Japan. Below is his answer. Tellingly, he does not want to be identified

“As you are a journalist,” he wrote back, “first I would like to explain how the Japanese government and bureaucrats are incompetent against the crisis.”

Because it appears on the websites of local Fox News stations, one instinctively takes an article titled Insider: Iran Will Be 'Next Chernobyl' with a grain of salt. But its plausibility is undeniable. See if you agree. The first Iranian nuclear power station is inherently unsafe and will probably cause a "tragic disaster for humankind," according to a document apparently written by an Iranian whistleblower. There is a "great likelihood" that the Bushehr reactor could generate the next nuclear catastrophe after Chernobyl or Fukushima, says the document. … It claims that Bushehr, which began operating last month after 35 years of intermittent construction, was built by "second-class engineers" who bolted together Russian and German technologies from different eras; that it sits in one of the world's most seismically active areas but could not withstand a major earthquake; and that it has "no serious training program" for staff or a contingency plan for accidents. The document's authenticity cannot be confirmed, but nuclear experts see no reason to doubt it.

More about the Russian-German incompatibility: "The Russian parts are designed to standards that are less stringent than the Germans' and they are being used out of context in a design where they are exposed to inappropriate stresses," the document says. It goes on to claim that "much of the necessary work for Bushehr is outside the competence of the Russian consulting engineers," who consider the project a "holiday."

What's ironic about this article is that Fox types no doubt view the shoddy-sounding state of Iran's nuclear-energy program as a force multiplier to add to Iran's alleged development of nuclear weapons. Operating in synergy, theoretically they should make the case for attacking Iran. To others though, Iran's possible nuclear-energy troubles eclipse the nuclear weapons threat. Thus is Iran reduced from malevolent to incompetent and not worth attacking. Given enough time, its nuclear program may well blow itself up. 

nine-tenths of the country which suffered no damage at all, that strength appears to have gone missing. Japan as a whole is suffering a kind of nervous breakdown. In towns nowhere near the tsunami zone, normal life has effectively stopped, with offices and shops closed, pavements empty and factory production lines silent. The only cars on the streets are queuing for petrol.

Even before the disaster, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan was dogged by cabinet resignations, leadership plots and a 20 per cent approval rating. His government still appears paralysed.And there is, of course, another problem large enough to poleaxe a better man than Mr Kan. Some 150 miles north of Tokyo, the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is leaking radiation in quantities which the government admits could have an impact on human health.

The morale meltdown is, in fact, another symptom of government failure: an immediate failure to be clear and upfront about the risks, and a longer-term failure to behave trustworthily over nuclear power.