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The economic community of West African States, a regional blog, said that it would hold a summit in Abuja, Nigeria's capital on Thursday to discuss the coup in Niger.

Earlier, Niger's ruling junta shut the country's airspace and warned of an attack by a foreign power.

Echo was, had threatened military intervention, should Niger's coup leaders fail to allow President Mohamed Basoum to return office by Sunday, but the deadline passed without incident.

Marley and Burkino Faso, both of which are ruled by their armies, will send a joint delegation to Niger to express solidarity with its new leaders.

Yellow, an American trucking company, filed for bankruptcy, and said it would sell all or substantially all of its assets.

By the end of March, the 99-year-old firms, outstanding debt, topped $1 billion.

Darren Hawkins, the company's boss, said that yellow intends to pay back, in full, the $700 million pandemic relief loan it received from the federal government in 2020.

The company's closure will affect 30,000 employees.

Voters in the Central African Republic, backed constitutional changes, scrapping a limit of presidential terms, according to the country's electoral authority.

If ratified, the proposed new law would enable the country's president, Fosten Akhash Tudera, who hosts the mercenary Wagner Group, to seek re-election in 2025.

Critics said that turnout in the referendum might have been as low as 10%.

Paramount will sell Simon and Schuster, a book publisher, to KKR, a private equity firm, for $1.6 billion.

The all cash deal ended Paramount's three years search for a buyer.

In November Paramount terminated a $2.2 billion agreement to sell Simon and Schuster to Penguin Random House, another publishing house, after America's Justice Department sued to block the merger.

Simon's energy reported a net loss of 2.9 billion euros or $3.2 billion for its third quarter and predicted it will lose a total of 4.5 billion euros this year.

The firm said that the poor third quarter results were in part due to rising costs in its wind turbine division.

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