Bloomberg Aeroports du Congo, a unit of Groupe Egis of France, threatened to halt operations at three airports it manages because of debts owed by the government. The state owes the company 5 billion CFA francs ($9 million), including value-added tax refunds and landing fees, Director-General Jean-Michel Ratron said in a statement emailed from the capital, Brazzaville. The company is …

Bloomberg Three years ago, Amazon.com Inc. launched a marketplace to connect its customers with handymen, landscapers and housekeepers in their neighbourhoods, a direct challenge to the likes of Angie’s List Inc. and Yelp Inc. The offering embraced the independent contractor model, using Amazon’s web store to create a new service from scratch without hiring a single person or buying any …

BEIRUT / Reuters Lebanon’s government plans to swap $5 billion of new foreign currency bonds for Lebanese pound debt with the central bank, in an operation its finance minister suggested would slash the cost of servicing its huge debt pile by as much as $1.5 billion. Ali Hassan Khalil, speaking in parliament, said 218 billion pounds ($145 million) of the …