Osaka's draconian move isn't just bad news for clubbers – it affects the whole area. And now it is meeting resistance

Before Kevin Bacon was walking around in annoying adverts talking about himself and the 4G network, he was in a film called Footloose. It focuses on a teenager who is sent to live in the small town of Bomont, West Virginia, where rock music and dancing are banned. It's debatable whether or not the film is any good but the basic premise – that the simple act of dancing could be banned – seemed like something that, well, could only happen in the movies. However, in Japan and especially the country's third largest city, Osaka, that is exactly what is happening.

The nightclubs in the city's Amemura area, known as "little America" on account of its trendy vintage shops that stock large amounts of US clothing, started being targeted by the authorities recently. Under laws known as Fueiho, which govern "adult entertainment" (and date back to the 1940s), any establishment which allows its customers to dance must obtain a licence. For years the authorities turned a blind eye, but three years ago they began raiding establishments which did not have the licences.

These licences come with a few requirements: the club must close by either midnight or 1am (in other words, just as things are getting going) and have 66 sq m of unobstructed floor space in the main room. Anyone who has been to Japan knows that the vast majority of bars and clubs simply don't have that amount of room for a dancefloor because space is at such a premium, especially in the country's big cities.

On a recent trip to Osaka I spoke to the owner of Noon nightclub, Masatoshi Kanemitsu, in Amemura. Last April he and seven members of staff were arrested by police and held for 22 days because 11 people were dancing in his club. His bank accounts were investigated and police looked for links between himself and Yakuza (Japanese gangsters), which simply didn't exist. Similar raids have taken place in Amemura since 2010 and in the aftermath many establishments have been forced to close. Noon just about manages to carry on but, like in many of Osaka's nightclubs, now patrons know that dancing is strictly prohibited.

The reason for the crackdown centres on complaints from local residents of noise, concerns around antisocial behaviour associated with the clubs, and wider concerns over clubbing culture which have made the headlines after high-profile celebrity ravers were caught in possession of drugs.

The same moral panic that led to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Actin the UK started to envelope Japan in 2010. But instead of legislation that took clubbing from the unregulated, illegal rave scene and helped plonk it into the mainstream, the Japanese authorities seem intent on using the outmoded Fueiho regulations to kill off bars and clubs where dance music is played altogether.

Yet the moral panic that has overcome the authorities seems to only stretch so far. They have failed to see the hypocrisy in effectively banning the act of dancing in Osaka's nightclubs – partly because of issues of taste – while still allowing Amemura's lap dancing clubs to operate a few hundred metres down the road. It's a situation that has driven Kanemitsu to form the protest group Let's Dance, and take legal action of his own against the authorities.

In Osaka the clampdown is more than a simple issue of gentrification, and it affects more than just the livelihoods of DJs, musicians and club owners. The bars and clubs act as a hub for creativity, not only for dance music, but for those interested in fashion, design and art too. It's impossible to imagine areas like Shoreditch or Dalston in London or Manchester's Northern Quarter without the bars and clubs that help give the areas their identity, but because they don't fit in with the Osaka authority's idea of what Amemura should be, they are being squeezed out.

In Osaka the fightback has already started. For some it's a case of saving the music and clubs that they love, but for others it's just a case of wanting to go out and dance. In 2013 that simple act shouldn't be something rebellious, but without defying draconian laws people will lose the right to dance altogether and, in these austere times, that's about as welcome as another Kevin Bacon advert.

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Move could reignite tensions that flared up after Pyongyang's nuclear test earlier this year, which led to tighter UN sanctions

North Korea has fired three short-range Scud missiles from its east coast, amid diplomatic efforts to ease tensions over the state's nuclear programme.

Two missiles were launched on Saturday morning and another in the afternoon according to the South Korean defence ministry.

North Korea routinely tests such missiles, which can hit targets in South Korea. But the latest launches could signal a re-ignition of tension on the Korean peninsula, which ran high for several weeks following the imposition of tougher UN sanctions after Pyongyang's third nuclear test.

Earlier this year, North Korea threatened nuclear strikes on Seoul and Washington because of annual US-South Korean military drills and the tightened UN sanctions.

During weeks of high tension, South Korea reported that North Korea had moved missile launchers into place on its east coast ahead of a possible launch of a medium-range Musudan missile. The Musudan has a range of 3,500km, allowing it to reach Japan and possibly the US.

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Cheznye Emmons, 23, has life support machine turned off after drinking methanol from a bottle labelled as gin

A British backpacker has died after drinking poisoned alcohol in the Indonesian jungle.

Cheznye Emmons, 23, had bought a bottle labelled "gin" from a shop, which turned out to be deadly methanol. The beauty therapist from Essex had been trekking with her boyfriend and another man they met while travelling.

All three suffered health problems after drinking the methanol, which can cause kidney failure, blindness, seizures and death. Emmons lost her sight and was taken through the jungle to the nearest eye clinic. She was referred to hospital where she was placed in an induced coma.

Her parents flew to Indonesia where they eventually decided to turn off her life support machine.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in Indonesia and we are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time."

Her brother, Michael Emmons, said: "We're all just in shock. From what we understand, the shop poured the gin out of the original bottle and then replaced it with methanol. It was in the original bottle with the gin label on it. As far as we're aware, the shop has been shut and there's a police investigation."

Home-brewed spirits are common in Indonesia because of an alcohol tax of more than 200%, but methanol is a by-product of poor distillation techniques.

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China's deputy PM says tourists spitting, speaking loudly and other 'uncivilised behaviour' is damaging country's reputation

While tour operators and department stores from New York to Paris court Chinese visitors to boost their coffers, one of the country's top leaders has warned that ill-behaved tourists are damaging the national image.

Wang Yang, one of China's four deputy prime ministers, said that while other countries had welcomed Chinese tourism, the quality of some travellers was not high.

He said: "They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and [carry out] some other uncivilised behaviour. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact."

Wang told a government meeting that officials should guide tourists "to consciously obey social and public order and social morality, respect the local religions and customs, pay attention to their words and behaviour in the public, especially in the international environment, protect tourism resources and protect the environment", Xinhua, the state news agency, reported. Wang said tourists should be ambassadors for China's image.

Wang's complaint about graffiti may have been inspired by a domestic incident: there was anger recently when a vandal carved "Liang Qiqi was here" into a relic at Beijing's Forbidden City.

Chinese people made 70m overseas trips in 2011, according to the World Tourism Organisation, which predicted the annual total would rise to 100m by the end of the decade. That figure included trips to Hong Kong and Macau, run under the "one country, two systems" framework.

Though on average they spend less than their western counterparts, their sheer number means that China has become the highest-spending nation for outbound tourism. Its tourists spent $102bn (£67bn) overseas last year, compared with the $84bn that German and US tourists spent, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation.

Chinese tourists have raised concerns about the behaviour of their hosts, too – including a lack of language skills and poor planning in South Korea to bullying guides in Hong Kong, the lack of hot water in Italian hotel rooms and the UK's "unfriendly" visa system. Britain promised this week that it would try to simplify visa applications.

According to Visit Britain, the UK has seen a 39% rise in visits from China over the past five years. It welcomed 150,000 Chinese visitors last year, who between them spent £240m.

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Authorities push forward plans for 314 metre-high dam on Dadu river which would affect rare plants and fish

Chinese environmental authorities have approved construction plans for what could become the world's tallest dam, while acknowledging that the project would affect endangered plants and rare fish species.

The 314 metre-high dam (1,030ft) will serve the Shuangjiangkou hydropower project along the Dadu river in south-western Sichuan province, according to China's state news agency, Xinhua. A subsidiary of Guodian Group, one of China's five major state-owned power companies, will complete the project over a decade at an estimated cost of £2.9bn.

The dam will be far taller than the 185 metre-high Three Gorges dam along the Yangtze river – the world's most powerful hydroelectric project – and slightly edge out the current record holder, the 300 metre-high Nurek dam in Tajikistan. The world's second-tallest dam, the 292 metre-high Xiaowan dam on the Lancang (Mekong) river, is also in China.

China's environment ministry acknowledged that the dam would have an impact on the area's highly biodiverse flora and fauna.

"The project will affect the spawning and movement of rare fish species, as well as the growth of endangered plants, including the Chinese yew, which is under first-class state protection," the ministry said, according to Xinhua.

The ministry proposed counter-measures to mitigate the environmental impact, such as "protecting fish habitats in tributaries, building fish ladders and increasing fish breeding and releasing", Xinhua reported. The project is still awaiting a final go-ahead from China's state council.

The Dadu river is a tributary of the 450 mile-long Min river, which cuts through the centre of Sichuan province before joining the Yangtze further south.

Upon completion, the plant will have a total installed capacity of 2GW and produce nearly 8bn KW-hours of energy a year, about twice as much as the Hoover dam in the US.

China's hydropower development has surged in recent years as the country moves to increase non-fossil energy sources to 15% of its total energy use by 2020. Central authorities approved a controversial cascade of 13 dams on the pristine upper reaches of the Nu (Salween) river in January. The plans had stalled nearly a decade ago under pressure from environmental groups.

Scientists and environmental activists have raised concerns that a profusion of dams in south-west China could increase the area's risk of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and landslides.

Another hydroelectric project on the Dadu river prompted social unrest in 2004, as tens of thousands of farmers along its banks rioted against plans to relocate them. Authorities responded by halting the Pubugou dam's construction for a year.

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Peter Collier admits to making silly mistake in 'liking' image of 16-year-old exposing himself in 'sneaky nuts' prank

An Australian politician says he has learned a valuable lesson in social networking after he "liked" a Facebook photo without realising that it showed a teenage prankster exposing himself.

Western Australia's minister for education, Peter Collier, said he clicked the "like" button under what he thought was an innocent photo of the then 16-year-old in late 2011.

Collier apologised on Thursday and said he had no idea that the teenager, who was otherwise fully clothed and posing alongside an older man, was playing a prank commonly known as "sneaky nuts".

"At first glance it appeared to be a harmless picture," Collier said in a statement. "It was a silly mistake on my part. I only became aware of the actual content of the photo when shown by a journalist today. This obviously highlights the pitfalls of social media. I apologise if I caused any offence."

The stunt was popularised by Australian comedian Chris Lilley's TV show Angry Boys, in which a character revels in ruining group photos by secretly exposing himself. The prank has been a headache for some educators: last year, administrators at a Catholic school in Canada scrambled to place stickers over a photo printed in 1,300 class yearbooks of a student subtly exposing his genitals.

The Australian incident did not attract attention until late last month, when the teenager bragged on Twitter about fooling Collier, with whom he was friends on Facebook.

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Mayor of Osaka stands by claims that comfort women were a necessity during the second world war

A mayor in Japan has been condemned by the US government for declaring that sex slaves known as "comfort women" were a necessity during the second world war – at the same time as China has told its TV studios to tone down anti-Japanese storylines related to the period.

Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, stood by his remarks that the Japanese military's wartime practice of forcing Asian women into prostitution was necessary to maintain discipline and provide relaxation for soldiers. He has claimed that other countries' armies did the same and Japan is being unfairly singled out.

The US state department said Hashimoto's comments were outrageous and offensive. Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels. While some other second world war armies had military brothels, Japan is the only country accused of such widespread, organised sexual slavery.

Hashimoto said his lack of sensitivity to America's perception of prostitution might have caused outrage after his suggestion that US troops based in southern Japan should visit local adult entertainment venues to reduce sex crime.

"If there is one big mistake I made, that might have been my lack of understanding of culture behind the US sex industry if you mention adult entertainment in the US everyone thinks of prostitution," Hashimoto said. "I admit that my international sensitivity was quite poor when I had to operate beyond national borders."

Hashimoto said that on a recent visit to the southern island of Okinawa he suggested to the US commander there that the troops make use of the legal sex industry. More than half of about 50,000 US troops based in Japan under a bilateral security pact are on Okinawa, where base-related crime has long triggered anti-US military sentiment.

US officials rejected his proposal. "That goes without saying," Pentagon press secretary George Little said. In a tweet on Wednesday, Mike Honda, a Democrat who has urged Japan to take responsibility for wartime sex slavery, called Hashimoto's remarks on sex slavery "contemptible and repulsive" and demanded Japan's government "apologise for this atrocity".

US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the trafficking of women for sexual purposes during that era was "a grave human rights violation of enormous proportions. We hope that Japan will continue to work with its neighbours to address this and other issues arising from the past and cultivate relationships that allow them to move forward," Psaki said.

Hashimoto's comments came amid continuing criticism of earlier pledges by Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to revise past apologies for wartime atrocities. On Monday, a photograph was published in Japanese newspapers showing Abe posing in a fighter jet with the number 731 – which belonged to a notorious Japanese unit that performed chemical and biological experiments on Chinese. That triggered criticism in Beijing about a lack of sensitivity.

"Japan's far-right politicians have lost their minds," South Korea's JoongAng Daily said in an editorial on Thursday, adding that Abe and Hashimoto "have unabashedly brought up the ghosts of Japan's wartime past and irked neighbours that still bear bitter memories of its military aggression".

Separately in China, the television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before the second world war and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines.

Wartime atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in the country between 1937 and 1945 are taught to every Chinese school child and are a staple of television dramas. But Chinese viewers have taken to social media to complain about the ridiculous plots in the anti-Japan dramas, including one show in which heroic Chinese split Japanese soldiers in half with their hands, something shown in graphic detail.

Another features a Chinese archer who can shoot multiple arrows in one shot, killing several Japanese soldiers at the same time.

"The anti-Japan war is a great act of heroism performed by the Chinese people against the invaders, and is a valuable resource for film and television creativity," television watchdog official Wang Weiping told the official People's Daily. "Recently some of this creativity has shown a lack of seriousness, creating lots of nonsense, not respecting history and being overly entertaining which has had a bad effect on society which must be corrected."

The regulator has demanded that television stations re-evaluate their war dramas and "rectify" those which are "too entertaining" or pull them entirely from their schedules if such edits are impossible.

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It often appears there is one rule for small, insignificant countries and another for rising superpowers seen as 'strategic partners'

"Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government." Those words were written 52 years ago in an Observer article by Peter Benenson, who would go on to found Amnesty International.

Since then, the world has undergone profound changes. The iron curtain has fallen, democracy has taken root in eastern Europe, Latin America and much of Africa, and rapid advances in technology have made us more globally interconnected than ever before. Nonetheless, arbitrary imprisonment, torture and execution on political grounds remain commonplace. China, the world's rising superpower, continues to systematically engage in the political repression and torture of its citizens, with an estimated 7 to 8 million Chinese currently being held in prison or labour camps. From Cameroon to Cuba, Belarus to Bahrain, governments go on torturing and imprisoning those who dare to question their authority. For too many people around the world, the basic freedoms that are taken for granted in the west continue to be nothing but a distant dream.

On Wednesday, at the European parliament, we launched a transatlantic pact between the EU and US to highlight human rights abuses around the world. The Defending Freedoms Project, in association with Amnesty International and ChinaAid, calls on members of the European parliament and US congressmen and women to adopt and advocate on behalf of prisoners of conscience from around the world. Examples include Gao Zhisheng, the prominent Chinese human rights activist who has been repeatedly imprisoned and severely tortured for the last seven years. Or Nabeel Rajab, the Bahraini pro-democracy campaigner who has been beaten, jailed and denied medical treatment. By generating attention and support to these individual cases, it is hoped that combined pressure from the US and EU will help to secure their release.

Some regimes, including the Chinese government, defend oppression arguing that their societies place greater emphasis on political stability or economic growth than on individual freedoms. Yet this claim does not hold up to scrutiny. Chinese leaders have tried to bolster their waning legitimacy by pointing to the ancient ideals of Confucianism, as evidenced by the ubiquitous presence of state-sponsored Confucius Institutes around the world. But the ancient Confucian concept of minben asserted that "the people are the root of the state", and that their concerns should always come before the desires of those who rule them. Confucianism stresses the moral obligations and rights of the individual, and thus rejects a blind obedience to the state that reduces us all to mere cogs in the machine. Moreover, China's government is failing to respect its own laws and the rights that are enshrined in the Chinese constitution.

As we saw most recently during the Arab spring, all people around the world instinctively crave the same basic freedoms: the right to speak your mind without fear of torture or imprisonment, to be free from extra-judicial execution and disappearance and to criticise your government without putting yourself or your loved ones in danger. These fundamental rights are indisputably universal, and should be upheld at any cost. Benjamin Franklin once famously stated: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither."

For too long, western governments have stood by as authoritarian regimes around the world engage in systematic repression with impunity. The EU-China human rights dialogue, established 14 years ago, has yielded no tangible results, serving instead as a fig leaf for European leaders' general reluctance to challenge China robustly on its human rights record. The US, while historically more outspoken in its criticism of the Chinese government, has been increasingly cowed in recent years by China's growing economic and military might.

Likewise, European leaders have tended to mute their concerns over Moscow's deteriorating human rights record, largely as a result of their dependence on Russian oil and gas. Last month, in a welcome step, the US administration published a blacklist of 18 Russian human rights abusers who will now be subject to financial and travel sanctions. But until relatively recently, overt criticism was overshadowed by Obama's desire to "reset" relations with Russia and promote strategic and economic co-operation. Too often, it has appeared that there is one rule for small, insignificant countries such as Zimbabwe or Myanmar, and another for those rising superpowers deemed to be "strategic partners."

Together, the EU and US account for around half of global GDP and almost two-thirds of global military spending. A co-ordinated, transatlantic approach to human rights would mean the world's rising authoritarian powers could no longer act with impunity. Much has been made of the proposed EU-US trade agreement, and how this could counter China's growing power by allowing the EU and US to jointly set global trading rules. By using their combined economic and political clout, the EU and US could equally be promoting global standards on fundamental human rights.

In recent weeks, the heated debate over Britain's EU membership has largely revolved around economic costs and benefits. But international co-operation is not just about promoting trade and economic prosperity. It is about giving Britain the ability to project its influence around the globe.

Throughout history, there has been no authoritarian regime that has not eventually crumbled. None have been able to indefinitely repress the inherent human desire for justice and freedom from tyranny and subjugation. However, in showing solidarity with those who have the courage to challenge their oppressors, we can help to speed up the process of reform. And by co-operating with its allies, both in the EU and beyond, Britain can uphold its values and principles in a rapidly changing world.

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Thousands join second demonstration in a month against planned refinery making suspected carcinogen paraxylene

Thousands of protesters have gathered in the southern Chinese city of Kunming for the second time this month to voice concerns over the environmental impact of a planned chemical plant, underscoring the increasing willingness of China's emerging middle class to challenge government decisions by taking to the streets.

Around 2,000 protesters gathered in front of the Yunnan provincial government headquarters in a demonstration which drew a large police presence and began with one arrest, but remained largely non-violent.

Kunming's first environmental protest this month was held, without arrests, on 4 May, after China National Petroleum Corporation announced plans to build the chemical plant in Anning, a county seat 18 miles south-west of the city centre. Every year, the refinery would produce 500,000 tonnes of the chemical paraxylene (PX), a suspected carcinogen used in production of polyester, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. Kunming's municipal government has denied the claim, but residents fear the city's air and water will be polluted.

"We don't need speedy development. What we need is a healthy and peaceful country," a Kunming resident, Liu Yuncheng, told the Associated Press. "I still haven't given birth to a baby. I want to be pregnant and I want a healthy baby."

China's nimby demonstrations have proliferated in recent years, as its affluent, educated, and tech-savvy rising middle class grows exasperated with the government's "growth-first" development model and shadowy decision-making process.

The risks are high – the Chinese government strictly forbids most public protests, and crackdowns on similar demonstrations have been severe. Another "anti-PX" protest earlier this month in Chengdu, the capital of adjacent Sichuan province, was pre-empted by the arrival of hundreds of anti-riot and paramilitary police.

Yet experts say that if protesters refrain from challenging the Communist party's grip on power – and if the potential costs of cracking down outstrip those of ceding to public demand – authorities may tread with caution.

Chinese people have a "much higher sense of environmental rights" than they have in the past, said Ma Jun, the CEO of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing.

Ma added that Sichuan authorities may have clamped down because the PX plant near Chengdu was already nearing completion. "To my knowledge [the Kunming project] is in an earlier phase, and I think there are still opportunities there for reconsideration," he said. Furthermore, the province is still reeling from a devastating earthquake last month, raising the risk that a mass demonstration could spin out of control.

Thursday's demonstrators donned face masks displaying "anti-PX" messages, shouted: "Roll out, protest!" and sang the national anthem in unison, according to firsthand reports on Twitter. Photos posted online show a thick line of police pressed tightly against rows of protesters, many of them documenting the standoff with smartphones and digital cameras.

"We cherish blue skies and white clouds, as well as good air. If you want to build a refinery with 10m tonnes of capacity here in the place where we live, we resolutely oppose it," said a Kunming resident who identified herself only by her surname, Liu. "We want a good life. We women want to be beautiful," she told the Associated Press.

At about 4pm, Kunming's mayor, Li Wenrong, addressed the crowd in a seemingly impromptu press conference. Li promised "equal dialogue", public hearings about the refinery's future, and increased investment in pollution control, the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper reported, adding that some onlookers dismissed his vows as lip service.

Li parried censorship-related queries by saying: "All levels of government have good intentions … but their methods may not always be right," the newspaper reported.

"Protest activities only happen on the precondition that the government doesn't offer opportunities for information transparency, dialogue and negotiation," said an influential Kunming-based blogger who uses the name Bianmin, or "frontier person", in an email interview. "If the government clings to its position, the public's resistance will only increase."

Concessions to such protests by local governments and state-owned companies are not without precedent. A Shanghai battery manufacturer announced on Wednesday that it would cancel plans for a new plant after hundreds of locals staged three successive protests about its potential environmental impact.

In August 2011, a massive protest in the north-eastern city of Dalian led local authorities to announce that they would relocate a polluting PX plant. Last autumn, authorities in Ningbo City, in coastal Zhejiang province, scrapped plans to expand a similar state-owned plant after a week-long demonstration by thousands of aggrieved residents.

Li Bo, head of the Beijing-based NGO Friends of Nature, said the recurrence of "anti-PX" demonstrations showed that China's environmental authorities had been slow to learn from past mistakes.

"There were various attempts to find out more about this project by citizens in Kunming, but they have had a lot of difficulty getting satisfactory information," Li said. "A lot of worries and doubts have accumulated, which is more or less what happened with the previous PX projects in Dalian and Ningbo."

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