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Trump to host five African leaders next week to discuss 'commercial opportunities'U.S. President Donald Trump will host leaders from five African nations in Washington next week to discuss "commercial opportunities," a White House official said on Wednesday.Trump will host leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal for a discussion and lunch at the White House on July 9, the official said."President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners," the official said, referring to the reasons why the meeting was arranged.Africa Intelligence and Semafor reported earlier that the Trump administration would hold a summit for the five countries in Washington from July 9-11.The Trump administration has axed swaths of U.S. foreign aid for Africa as part of a plan to curb spending it considers wasteful and not aligned with Trump's "America First" policies. It says it wants to focus on trade and investment and to drive mutual prosperity.On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was abandoning what he called a charity-based foreign aid model and will favor those nations that demonstrate "both the ability and willingness to help themselves."U.S. envoys in Africa will be rated on commercial deals struck, African Affairs senior bureau official Troy Fitrel said in May, describing it as the new strategy for support on the continent.-REUTERSIMF says it remains engaged with Senegal, Sonko promises 'recovery plan'The International Monetary Fund said it remained engaged with Senegal as the West African country's prime minister promised a recovery plan to clean up billions in debts that were not disclosed by the previous administration.The IMF, a key financier for the debt-laden country, froze disbursements on its programme with Senegal last year after an audit under new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye found the previous administration had understated deficits, pushing its end-2023 debt ratio to roughly 100% of GDP, versus the previously reported 74%."We're waiting for the government to share with us basically the final numbers and the key issues that they've identified," Abebe Aemro Selassie, director of the IMF's African Department, said on the sidelines of the Africa Debate in London. "And we hope to move along as quickly as possible. We remain engaged."In a speech streamed on social media Tuesday night, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said that he would present a "recovery plan" in the coming days that would "tell the Senegalese how to get the country back on its feet, point by point.""We will explain what we expect from the people, how the state must reduce its spending, and how to proceed with our partners," he said.Selassie said the IMF is also waiting to see the extent of the mis-reporting, and what avenues were used, in order to determine how the government managed to conceal the larger-than-reported debt from the Fund during an active programme.-REUTERS India sends geologists to Zambia to explore copper and cobalt deposits, sources sayIndia has dispatched a team of geologists to Zambia to explore copper and cobalt deposits, two Indian government sources said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to secure critical mineral supplies essential to its energy transition.The Zambian government this year agreed to allocate 9,000 square km (3,475 square miles) to India for the exploration of cobalt - a key component in batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones - as well as for scouting copper, which is widely used in power generation, electronics, and construction.The exploration project will last for three years and most of the analysis will be done in laboratories in India, one of the sources said.The team is expected to make multiple visits over the course of the entire project, said the sources, who declined to be identified because the information is not public.After assessing the mining potential, the Indian government will seek a mining lease from the Zambian government and may also invite private-sector companies to participate in the project, the sources said.India's Ministry of Mines did not respond to a request for comment.New Delhi has been in talks with several African countries to acquire critical mineral blocks on a government-to-government basis, while also exploring opportunities in Australia and Latin America.India has held internal discussions over its growing vulnerability to a tightening global copper market and plans to explore ways to secure supply from resource-rich countries during ongoing trade negotiations, Reuters reported last week.India's copper imports have risen sharply since the 2018 closure of Vedanta's Sterlite Copper smelter. The country imported 1.2 million metric tons of copper in the fiscal year ending March 2025, up 4% from the previous year.India is almost entirely dependent on cobalt imports and shipments of cobalt oxide rose 20% in 2024/25 to 693 metric tons, government data showed.-REUTERS

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