A volunteer group makes kimchi at Geumcheon Hoam Senior Welfare Center in Geumcheon District, southern Seoul, on Oct. 27.YONHAP
Good evening on this cool autumn Tuesday in Seoul! Here are the stories you need to know in Korea.
In today's news, weight-loss drugs are being confiscated at customs, even for visitors with prescriptions, as authorities draw criticism for blocking genuine medications.
In other news, fixed margins and IP rights issues are eating into film and television company revenues despite the success of Korean content. Meanwhile, a spectator at an LAFC match is accused of repeatedly shouting "ni hao" at Korean football star Son Heung-min in the United States.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Today's top story
KOREA
Costly at home, confiscated at customs: Korea's weight-loss drug rules spark backlash
Government restrictions on bringing weight-loss drugs into Korea — even when they have been legally prescribed by medical institutions overseas — are drawing criticism for blocking genuine medications rather than just counterfeit or illegally distributed products.
Even a genuine Mounjaro pen purchased at a licensed pharmacy with a prescription issued in the patient's name by a medical institution overseas cannot be brought into Korea, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and other authorities.
This means foreign tourists and international students may also face customs problems when entering Korea with medication prescribed for their treatment.
K-content had a record $15 billion in exports. So why aren't producers making any money?
Korean film and TV production companies said fixed margins and lost IP rights from broadcasters and platforms leave them with scant returns on global hits, forcing many to operate at a loss.
LAFC fan accused of racist 'ni hao' taunt toward Sonny after Galaxy draw
A video of a spectator appearing to repeatedly shout the Chinese word for "hello" at Korean star Son Heung-min after LAFC’s draw with the Galaxy has sparked calls for club action.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ BUSINESS
KMCC to fine Google and Apple a combined 63.7 billion won over forced in-app payments
The media regulator is set to dock the firms a total of $48.1 million for allegedly coercing developers to use their in-app payment systems, but the numbers pale in comparison to what the EU fined the tech giants for similar violations. Read more
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KOREA
Police book 80 people for illegally activating Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode
Seoul police say suspects used overseas or homemade devices to unlock Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature, which is only authorized for use on about 20 percent of Teslas in Korea.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KOREA
Everland's baby panda Shu Bao to make public debut this week
Shu Bao will make its first appearance on Friday. The theme park plans to gradually extend the cub's viewing hours and increase the number of visitors allowed while prioritizing its health and ability to adjust to the new environment.
