HANOI – Punters in gambling-mad Vietnam cheered the easing of a ban on sports betting Saturday, as the communist government moves to bring a booming black market industry above board.

Vietnam has long barred locals from gambling of any form, allowing only a few foreigner-only casinos.

But the law is widely flouted – especially in the run-up to major sporting events — when millions of dollars change hands through illegal gambling dens or online betting rings.

On Friday, the government announced a pilot programme that would allow Vietnamese citizens over the age of 21 to place wagers on international football matches.

It follows a similar announcement last month that said citizens would be permitted to hedge bets in local casinos from mid-March.

“The matches and tournaments for international football betting must be recognised by FIFA,” the new decree said, adding that gambling would also be allowed at horse and greyhound races.

But there is one catch – the football bets cannot top more than one million dong ($44) per match, a limit that is unlikely to satiate Vietnam’s most passionate punters.

The betting will also be restricted to state-approved bookmakers.

The announcement was nevertheless welcomed by many in Vietnam, where football and a flutter go hand-in-hand as national obsessions.

“Bravo! No need for secret betting,” online commentator Nguyen Thanh Phuc wrote beneath an article on the state-run VnExpress that hailed the move as a “historic decision”.

Yet some expressed concern that gambling, long branded a “social evil” by the government, would now run wild in a country where punters are already known for staking their savings — and even their homes — on big tournaments.

“Gamblers now have another thing to play. Many families will be miserable again,” wrote Tran Phuc.

The moves to ease Vietnam’s strict betting and casino bans come after years of debating whether to legalise gambling and open the government up to millions in potential tax revenue.

While the export value of wagyu beef continues to grow, fake wagyu products are now rampant at department stores and other places in parts of Asia.

Falsely indicating the origin conflicts with the Unfair Competition Prevention Law and other regulations in Japan, but these are not applicable overseas.

To address the situation, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry plans to encourage relevant organisations to register products under the Geographical Indication (GI) protection system (see below), under which food and other products produced in particular areas are registered as intellectual property, while strengthening surveillance for fake products in co-operation with the countries concerned.

Singapore ‘Matsusaka-ushi’ beef

“We hope to increase Matsusaka-ushi beef exports, but there are so many fake products,” said an official at the Matsusaka municipal government in Mie Prefecture.

The municipal government serves as the secretariat for Matsusaka-ushi beef producers’ organisations and other entities.

When the city participated in a food fair in Singapore as an exhibitor last summer, municipal government officials in charge found a banner reading “Matsusaka-ushi” in front of a local meat shop.

The official said, “It is necessary to conduct a DNA analysis on the beef to determine if it is fake. We don’t have the time or money to do that.”

While fake Kobe beef products have also been found, an official at the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association, comprised of Kobe Beef producers and distributors, said, “It is impossible for a producers’ organisation alone to tackle such a problem.”

The agriculture ministry established the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Intellectual Property Protection Consortium to monitor fake products in Asia.

According to a 2015 survey it conducted in six countries and territories including China, Indonesia and Hong Kong, counterfeit products were found in 31 cases.

The ministry said it has mainly found counterfeit wagyu products this fiscal year.

Registration difficulties

Trademark registration is used for preventing fake luxury food ingredients from being widely distributed.

However, there are some cases overseas in which trademark registration was not approved due to invalid reasons.

One example is Yamagata Prefecture’s Yonezawa-gyu beef.

 In order to prevent meat being branded as Yonezawa-gyu beef by a third party, the council for the promotion of the Yonezawa-gyu beef brand, comprised of local livestock farmers and local governments, applied for a trademark with the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China.

However, in 2015, the Chinese authority denied the application because the trademark would cause confusion, since it includes the name of a place in Japan.

The council again applied for the trademark registration of a logo containing a drawing of a Yonezawa cow accompanied with the letters “Yonezawa-gyu,” but that application was refused for a similar reason.

“We don’t even understand why our application was not approved. In China, our stance cannot be accepted,” an official of the council said.

Mutual surveillance

Even though sales of counterfeit goods have been confirmed overseas, both the Unfair Competition Prevention Law and the Law against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations do not apply.

Regarding luxury food products, the ministry has therefore encouraged relevant organisations to obtain trademark registrations to protect their brands.

However, they are often not registered as trademarks as intended. If a trademark is violated, a relevant producers’ organisation or other entities need to file a lawsuit on their own, making many of them reluctant to register trademarks.

The ministry started the GI protection system in 2015, making it possible to impose fines on those who produce or sell products with falsified labeling about the place of production.

Similar systems have been introduced in more than 100 countries, including EU nations.

The ministry also registered Japan’s GI mark as a trademark in such countries as South Korea and Australia, we well as the European Union, by the end of last year.

Furthermore, the ministry plans to crack down on fake products by concluding a bilateral agreement to ensure mutual protection of GIs with respective countries.

“If fake products of inferior quality are widely distributed, it will undermine the genuine brand’s products. We would like to boost surveillance to prevent negative effects from occurring,” a ministry official said.

Exports at record high

Behind the spread of fake wagyu products lies its high popularity overseas as a luxury food item.

In 2016, the export value of wagyu was ¥13.6 billion (S$172 million), up 24 per cent from the previous year, and its export volume rose 18 per cent year-on-year to 1,909 tons.

Both figures are record highs, with the export volume more than 20 times higher than a decade ago.

One-third of exports are destined for Hong Kong, followed by Cambodia, the United States, Singapore and Thailand.

Due to the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, in Japan in 2001, China, South Korea and other countries have banned wagyu imports.

However, some producers’ organisations are seeking trademark registration in China to prevent the value of their brands from being undermined by the spread of fake products.

Geographical Indication (GI) protection system

Under the system, the central government and other authorities evaluate and give guarantees on the quality of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products and processed foods that are produced in specific areas.

Twenty-four products with high brand value are currently registered as GIs, including Kobe Beef, Tajima Gyu/Tajima Beef, Yubari Melon and Shimonoseki Fuku (tiger pufferfish).

Applications for the system have currently been made for more than 60 products.

HONG KONG – Pimp turned do-gooder Kaushic Biswas has swapped the brothel for the kitchen and is now teaching the sort of women he once exploited how to cook their way out of sex trafficking.

It is a total change from his Mumbai life back in the 1990s, when Biswas earned big money as a pimp, managing and selling women for sex after they had been trafficked into prostitution.

“Every night I broke down and cried. I cried because I was part of the exploitation,” Biswas told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Biswas was a trained chef whose life took a bad turn in 1991 and has now come full circle. Biswas says he wants to help victims of trafficking, the sort of women he once sold for sex to be abused by the wealthy clients he calls “johns”.

“Sometimes they forced me to watch.”

MASTER CHEF

Born in Calcutta, India, Biswas trained as a chef then worked in top hotels. But aged 21, he changed tack, discovered the underworld of Mumbai’s discos, and worked for 18 months hooking up women with wealthy clients, many from the Middle East.

“I was lost and needed money to survive. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do this,” he said. “Many of these ladies cried with me. They were drinking, some of them took drugs. Drinking was like drinking water for them.”

Something had to change. So Biswas bought a plane ticket to Thailand to escape Mumbai, working once more as a chef, first in a 5-star hotel in Thailand, next under his mentor in Hong Kong.

It was here that Biswas feels he found his true calling.

Biswas said he found solace in a church and joined fellow believers, setting up an outreach post in Chungking Mansion, home to some of the cheapest housing in the city.

He reached hundreds of drug addicts, dealers and refugees. This led to a later project that also supported domestic helpers trapped in debt bondage and migrant women working as prostitutes in Wanchai’s notorious red-light district.

“We hope to train bar girls who want to leave the industry,” said Biswas. “I’m a chef. That’s my gift. [I want to] use it. Whether it’s with prostitutes, drug addicts or refugees.”

Taste of Hope – a social enterprise launched in June 2016 with church help – now offers free cooking classes and trains some of Hong Kong’s most vulnerable people in how to run a small business. There was no mention of God in the classes attended by Thomson Reuters and Biswas instead used his kitchen skills and background in the sex trade to connect with the trainee chefs.

“Job training provides skills and alternatives so that [trafficking survivors] do not fall prey to economic pressures. But more importantly, it helps rebuild their values and identities,” said Sandy Wong, Chair of the Anti-Human Trafficking Committee of Hong Kong Federation of Women Lawyers.

LOST SOULS

About 340,000 migrant women, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, work as domestic helpers in Hong Kong, according to a US government “Trafficking in Persons” report.

Some employment agencies charge excessive placement fees or issue fraudulent debt contracts above the legal limit in Hong Kong, leading to debt bondage, the State Department report said. Traffickers trick women from the Philippines and Thailand to work in prostitution in bars, then wield control through crushing debt repayments and by withholding passports.

Last June, Biswas began the three-month cooking course in partnership with Harmony Baptist church in the red light area of Wanchai with a mission to reach trafficking victims.

Once a week, Biswas and his co-worker Preston Hartwick teach Indian cooking to about six to eight women, including victims of debt bondage and sex trafficking.

Kat, 23, is a bar girl and trafficking victim from the Philippines who recently joined the class. About a month ago, Kat says she was tricked into prostitution at a bar in Hong Kong. She was desperate to find work to support her daughter and ill mother. For the next three to four months, she will now have to pay off a debt to the agency that recruited her.

“I’m traumatized. There are three other women at my bar that feel the same. I always feel in danger. I take a risk every time I go out with a male customer,” said Kat as she wept.

Domestic helper Maria Reyes, 34, is also new to the job training. Sole bread-winner for her 10-year-old son, husband and mother in the Philippines, Reyes was laden with debt after signing an agency contract twice that stipulated she pay back more than 80 per cent of her monthly salary for seven months.

“It really helps me a lot I cannot afford [to pay for a] cooking class. I’m thinking about seriously opening my own business,” said Reyes, who has worked in Hong Kong since 2012.

The church that partnered with Biswas said it is trying to help trafficked people get home to a normal family life.

“We feel that Taste of Hope’s work  gives them hope that they can take more control of their own future and get a job that also allows them to live with their families instead of overseas,” said Pastor Chris Hartwick of Harmony Baptist church.

Special investigators on Friday sought to execute a seizure and search warrant at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, naming the state chief a bribery suspect in the extensive corruption scandal, but left after hours of unsuccessful attempts to access the grounds.

Their raid came as a preparatory stage for a face-to-face interrogation of President Park Geun-hye — the first-ever summoning of an incumbent president in the nation’s history, an event which is largely expected to take place late next week.

The independent counsel’s search unit arrived at the Blue House at around 9:51 a.m., suggesting a search warrant was issued by the Seoul Central District Court late on the previous day.

Officials had heralded the search to start at 10 a.m.

The visit marked the first time that the special team, led by Independent Counsel Park Young-soo, tried to force itself into the precincts of the presidential office since it started its investigation in December.

Read Also: Prosecutors in standoff at S Korea president’s office

The places subject to search were the offices of the presidential chief of staff, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, senior presidential secretary for policy coordination, personal secretary to the president, the presidential security team and the medical office.

But Cheong Wa Dae maintained its stern guard, refusing to offer investigators access to the presidential compound, citing “national security” reasons.

After hours of tension at the main gate, the search team withdrew at around 3 p.m.

Park has been accused of letting her civilian confidante Choi Soon-sil meddle in state affairs and amass illegitimate profits by using her high-profile connections.

Denying such allegations and resisting the investigation, Presidential Chief of Staff Han Gwang-ok issued a statement to disallow the prosecutors’ entry.

“The presidential office is categorized as a national security facility which handles military and state secrets, so we cannot accept any raid, according to previous practices,” a ranking official said.

“But we will fully co-operate by submitting the requested documents.”

This came in line with spokesperson Jung Youn-kuk’s remarks on the previous day that the Blue House’s stance remains “unchanged,” denying the reports that a partial search in some of the facilities may be possible.

The situation was reminiscent of October last year, when the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s special investigation team were halted while attempting a raid and settled for the set of documents selectively handed over by Cheong Wa Dae.

The team later raided one of the offices affiliated with Senior Presidential Secretary for Civil Affairs Woo Byung-woo, which was an annex located outside the presidential compound.

Read Also: South Korea court chief urges ruling on Park’s impeachment by March 13

The legal basis for the defensive presidential office is mainly the Criminal Procedure Code act which states that locations which are related with military and state secrets may not be raided without the consent of the person in charge. The given clause does add that the consent is compulsory, unless the search seriously infringes on the nation’s interest.

With President Park currently suspended upon impeachment, the consenting authority lies upon Prime Minister and acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn who has so far reserved his stance upon the issue.

“We will send out an official letter to the acting president, asking for his co-operation in the search,” said the independent counsel’s spokesperson Lee Kyu-chul.

But as the search warrant is to hold effect for several more days, investigators are pledging to make repeated raiding attempts before summoning the president, according to officials.

The raid would have taken place a day earlier on Thursday, which was President Park’s 65th birthday, but investigators put off the date in consideration of the occasion.

Key government and junta figures yesterday ruled out the possibility of a fresh military coup this year, rebuffing a prediction in the Washington Post that Thailand had a high risk of another power seizure.

Authorities said there were no reasons for another military coup and that the current post-coup government was enjoying unity with the Armed Forces.

They also said that the military worked under the administration.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said military officers did not want to stage a coup unless the country was mired in a severe impasse.

He added that if reconciliation could be reached between the conflicting sides, “no coups would ever happen again” in Thailand.

“There is a high likelihood of no more coups if all the politicians can talk to one another and take good care of the people. The military then works under politicians,” Prawit said.

Army commander-in-chief General Chalermchai Sitthisart also ruled out the possibility of a coup against the current government.

He said Thai people should know better than the foreign media regarding the matter.

Chalermchai, speaking in his capacity as secretary-general of the ruling junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said he had stated there would not be a coup under his leadership shortly after assuming office as the Army chief last October.

The Army chief said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had the trust of all the Armed Forces commanders regarding security matters.

As NCPO secretary, Chalermchai was assigned by Prayut, who is also the NCPO chief, to approve the movements of military weapons on his behalf.

Chalermchai said the move was aimed at reducing the prime minister’s workload.

A Washington Post analysis piece published on Tuesday, under the headline “Where are coups most likely to occur in 2017?”, said Thailand was the second on a list of “Thirty countries with the highest risk of a coup attempt” – the top being Burundi.

The list included mostly African countries, as well as Turkey in the fifth spot, Pakistan 14th, Russia 20th, Ukraine 22nd and Nepal 28th.

The American newspaper said the rankings were based on its research to forecast irregular leadership changes that include coups.

“The country [Thailand] approved a new constitution in 2016 and scheduled elections for 2017 – but, as some researchers point out, elections often increase the risk of further coup attempts,” the paper said.

Democrat Party politician Watchara Petchthong said the Washington Post analysis was inaccurate as he believed that Thailand should have been ranked highest in terms of the chance of seeing another coup.

“Thailand always has a risk of a military coup. We have coups and elections alternatively, on average one coup every 10 years,” he said, adding that he did not think the latest coup in May 2014 would be the last for Thailand.

In a related development, Prawit and Chalermchai said threats had been made against both the defence minister and the prime minister.

Prawit said reporters who asked him about the possibility of another coup this year should have paid attention to an online threat to assassinate him.

“Some people posted on social media that they will kill me,” he said.

Chalermchai said security had been stepped up around Prayut and Prawit following the threat, although he did not think anything bad would happen.

The Army chief also said intelligence did not indicate any threats to the security of the two government leaders.