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At a meeting in Seoul on Monday, leaders from Italy and South Korea agreed to cooperate on the defense industry, marking a new collaboration between two strong allies of Ukraine who are, coincidentally, prohibited by their respective constitutions from directly sending Kyiv all the military help for which it might ask.

At his office in Seoul, President Lee Jae Myung hosted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the two agreed to expand cooperation in artificial intelligence, space and the defense industry, citing concerns about “global challenges.”

It was the first visit by an Italian leader to South Korea in almost two decades, AFP noted.

Lee said the two countries would “further expand the horizons of cooperation into advanced industries such as artificial intelligence, space, and aviation.

“In addition, we will pursue complementary cooperation in the defense industry based on each side’s strengths,” he said. Lee also vowed to “work closely together to contribute to global peace” and “safeguard the universal value of peace, extending our efforts ... to the wider world.”

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The Israeli government has forcibly taken large swathes of Palestinian land in the northwest of the occupied West Bank to pave the way for the establishment of a settlement, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

According to reports, the government seized around 700 dunams of land. Hebrew-language paper Yedioth Aharonoth confirmed the land grab, stating: "A few days ago, 695 dunams were taken to establish a new neighbourhood near the settlement of Karnei Shomron".

The report says that the area is located "in a highly strategic location and cuts off the geographical connection between the Palestinian town of Salfit and the city of Qalqilya".

"The main objective of this move, from the government’s point of view, is to cut off communication between Palestinian towns, turning them into isolated enclaves, and significantly undermining the chances of establishing a Palestinian state," the report continues.

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"Utensils in exchange for a bottle of olive oil and a kilo of za’atar so my children can take some to school.”

The post, shared by a Palestinian woman in Bethlehem in a private Facebook group for mothers, is no longer unusual.

Since the war on Gaza began - and Israeli restrictions across the occupied West Bank intensified - women have increasingly offered furniture, toys, kitchenware and even their children’s clothes in return for basic food.

Long the barest staples of Palestinian life, olive oil and za’atar (a herb blend) have become shorthand for poverty itself, captured in the saying: “He lives on oil and za’atar.”

But with time, they have turned into urgent pleas for milk, cooking oil, medicine and other essentials. 

Today, they map the depth of a cost-of-living crisis tightening its grip across the West Bank.

The territory is sliding into a hunger crisis, says economy researcher Dr Haitham Oweida.

Before the war, these Facebook groups dealt in surplus. They offered goodwill exchanges of outgrown clothes and spare toys.

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An extraordinarily violent crackdown by Iranian security forces appears to have succeeded for now in driving protesters from the streets, according to activists and analysts who mahttps://abcnews.go.com/International/bloody-crackdown-appears-quelled-iran-protests-now/story?id=129287014naged to speak with people inside the country despite the information blackout.

Demonstrations began in late December with protesters chanting in Tehran against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency before spreading across Iran and becoming more explicitly anti-government. Authorities have shut down the internet in Iran for more than a week as security forces moved to crush the protests.

The internet blackout in Iran continues to make it very difficult to get a clear picture from the ground, but accounts are emerging from people now able to use phone lines, those few with access to working Starlink satellite terminals and Iranians who have recently left the country.

These people describe an eerie calm over Iran's cities, where heavily armed security forces are deployed on the streets enforcing what many are describing as a de-facto curfew. 

Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian activist based in Washington, D.C., says he has helped send in hundreds of Starlink terminals to citizen journalists and others in Iran to help get around the government blackout.

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Preparing for meetings at the World Economic Forum, Ukrainian envoys in Florida made “substantive” progress on documents they hope to sign with US President Donald Trump in Davos, Switzerland this week.

“There have already been several rounds of negotiations,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. “They are working on the documents needed to end the war.”

Ukraine is looking for more precise language from its allies on security guarantees should Kyiv and Moscow come to terms on a ceasefire. Zelensky has noted on several occasions that the Kremlin is quite unserious about peace, given their relentless attacks on civilian targets in recent weeks, especially energy infrastructure, leaving much of Ukraine without heating during a stretch of sub-freezing temperatures.

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov and his team met with US envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll at Witkoff’s own golf course.

“We had substantive discussions on economic development and prosperity plan as well as security guarantees for Ukraine,” Umerov posted to social media.

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One day during his first term, Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. “Trump called me down to the Oval Office,” John Bolton, national security adviser in 2018, told the Guardian. “He said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland.”

It was an extraordinary proposal. And it originated from a longtime friend of the president who would go on to acquire business interests in the Danish territory.

The businessman, Bolton learned, was Ronald Lauder. Heir to a makeup fortune – the global cosmetics brand Estée Lauder – he had known Trump, a fellow wealthy New Yorker, for more than 60 years.

Bolton said he discussed the Greenland proposition with Lauder. After the billionaire’s intervention, a White House team began to explore ways to increase US sway in the vast Arctic territory controlled by Denmark.

Trump’s renewed pursuit of Lauder’s idea during his second term is typical of how the president operates, Bolton said. “Bits of information that he hears from friends, he takes them as truth and you can’t shake his opinion.”

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