Afghanistan’s acting Minister of Public Works Mohammad Esa Sani has discussed progress on the Wakhan Corridor in the far north of the country with China’s ambassador to Kabul Zhao Xing.

According to a statement issued by the ministry, Sani thanked Zhao for China’s cooperation with Afghanistan and said Kabul and Beijing shared long-standing economic, social and political relations.

He also said efforts should be made to further strengthen ties in different areas.

The ministry said initial surveys for the Wakhan Corridor project have been completed and that work on the design phase is underway.

The two officials also discussed the Trans-Afghan railway line that is expected to start from the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, and run through major cities in Afghanistan to Hyderabad, Pakistan.

They also stressed the need to expand bilateral trade and economic cooperation, as well as implementing reconstruction projects.

Once complete, the Wakhan Corridor will stretch eastward, connecting Afghanistan to Xinjiang in China.

Saudi Arabia affirmed its categorical rejection of remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about displacing Palestinians from their land, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Israeli officials have suggested the establishment of a Palestinian state on Saudi territory. Netanyahu appeared to be joking on Thursday when he responded to an interviewer on pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 who mistakenly said "Saudi state" instead of "Palestinian state", before correcting himself, Reuters reported.

While the Saudi statement mentioned Netanyahu's name, it did not directly refer to the comments about establishing a Palestinian state in Saudi territory.

Egypt and Jordan also condemned the Israeli suggestions, with Cairo deeming the idea as a "direct infringement of Saudi sovereignty".

The kingdom said it valued "brotherly" states' rejection of Netanyahu's remarks.

"This occupying extremist mindset does not comprehend what the Palestinian territory means for the brotherly people of Palestine and its conscientious, historical and legal association with that land," it said.

Discussions of the fate of Palestinians in Gaza has been upended by Tuesday's shock proposal from President Donald Trump that the U.S. would "take over the Gaza Strip" from Israel and create a "Riviera of the Middle East" after resettling Palestinians elsewhere.

Arab states have roundly condemned Trump's comments, which came during a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza war that Israel has been waging against the militant group Hamas, which controls the narrow strip.

Trump has said Saudi Arabia was not demanding a Palestinian state as a condition for normalising ties with Israel. But Riyadh rebuffed his statements, saying it would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.

Gaza authorities say the war has killed more than 47,000 of the nearly 2 million Palestinians who live there. Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led gunmen killed some 1,200 people and seized more than 250 as hostages in an October 7, 2023, attack, according to Israeli tallies.

US Senator Tim Burchett said this week that he believes over $40 million of American taxpayers’ dollars is still going to Afghanistan weekly, despite President Donald Trump’s freeze on foreign aid.

Speaking to Breitbart News, the Republican senator said Friday: “We’ve been told that it is, somehow they’re getting it,” he said.

“That’s on the surface that we know about.”

The $40 million weekly cash transfers to Afghanistan were started following the collapse of the former government and the take over of power by the Islamic Emirate.

However, the cash shipments have gone to the United Nations’-led humanitarian assistance program in the country, and the Islamic Emirate has repeatedly, over the years, dismissed claims that they benefit from this money.

In April 2023, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko testified to Congress that the U.S. had made available $8 billion to Afghanistan after the August 2021 withdrawal.

Breitbart News reported however that it is not clear whether the $40 million weekly cash infusions for humanitarian aid are being drawn from the $8 billion and over what time period the $8 billion is meant to last for.

SIGAR has however claimed that the IEA “siphoned or benefited from a considerable amount of humanitarian aid,” by infiltrating United Nations-partnered Non-Governmental Organizations to access their aid budgets; imposing taxes and “security” fees on humanitarian workers; directing aid agencies to serve IEA officials and family members; and taxing Afghan aid recipients at high rates, in some cases amounting to 60 to 100 percent of the aid received.

In December 2023, Burchett however introduced a bill to stop the flow of money to the IEA. The bill passed the US House of Representatives unanimously, but did not gain support in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Last month, Burchett reintroduced his bill, dubbed the No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act.

At the time, Burchett said in a statement: “I look forward to working it through both chambers and getting it to President Trump’s desk as quickly as possible.”

If passed, the bill would force the State Department to develop and implement a policy to oppose any foreign aid from going to the Islamic Emirate; it would require a report on any cash assistance programs in Afghanistan and how the US keeps the IEA from accessing that; and it would require a report on the Afghan Fund and on IEA members attached to Da Afghanistan Bank - the country’s central bank.

Speaking to Breitbart News, Burchett said his father “used to have a saying, ‘Old men make decisions and young men die.'”