The world’s top two cocoa producers Ivory Coast and Ghana on Monday threatened to name and shame top chocolate brands who they say are undermining a scheme aimed at paying cocoa farmers a living income.

The Neighbouring West African states, who account for over 60% of global output of cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, are locked in a protracted battle with chocolate makers over the price of their beans.

The countries introduced a $400 per tonne premium scheme known as the Living Income Differential (LID) at the start of a 2020/2021 season to enable them pay farmers a decent income.

But a drop in demand because of COVID-19 and an abundant harvest have left farmers with surplus beans.

A separate premium on beans from both countries paid by chocolate makers also made their cocoa expensive in a sluggish market, forcing cocoa buyers to demand discounts.

“While they are paying (the LID) on the right hand, they are taking the money from the left hand by not paying the country premium,” Joseph Boahen Aidoo, the chief executive of Ghana’s cocoa regulator COCOBOD, told journalists in Abidjan.

“Once the country differential is discounted by between 100 and 250 pounds sterling ($348.25), it means essentially the LID has been eroded,” Aidoo said on the sideline of a meeting where the countries launched an organisation to represent them.

He added that consumers buy brand chocolates and pay the premium price for chocolate which should go to the farmers.

“This amounts to robbing the consumers by collecting premium on bars of chocolate and then refusing to pay when buying cocoa beans,” he said. “Very soon the buyers may force us to name and shame all those who are not paying the country premium.”

He declined to name the chocolate makers.

Yves Brahima Kone, the head of Ivory Coast’s Cocoa and Coffee Council regulator, told journalists that some buyers in the sector had a short-term view.

“They want to make money today and do not think about tomorrow,” adding that while the chocolate makers are reluctant to pay the LID which could cost around $900 million globally, the industry was spending $5 billion on marketing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has agreed in principle to reschedule Congo Republic’s debt, Congolese Finance Minister Rigobert Roger Andely said on Monday, adding that the move would help unlock stalled International Monetary Fund lending.

The IMF approved a $449 million, three-year lending programme in 2019 on the condition that the Central African oil producer ensured the long-term sustainability of its debt.

Only $45 million has been disbursed to date, however, as the government has struggled to secure a restructuring of its debt to oil traders.

“The debt is an obstacle to the conclusion and the continuation of relations with the IMF within the framework of the extended facility which was concluded in July 2019. That’s the point that sometimes hurts our country,” said Andely.

Congo previously reached a deal with China in 2019 to restructure a portion of its debt. That arrangement required Congo to repay a third of its debt within three years, with the remainder benefiting from a 15-year extension of the repayment schedule.

President Denis Sassou Nguesso made the request for further rescheduling during a phone call on Monday with his Chinese counterpart, Andely said.

Andely said the Congolese president had told Xi that, in the two years since the restructuring was agreed, the debt had again become unsustainable due to the shock caused by the coronavirus pandemic. “President Xi Jinping approved this and thanked him for this proposition,”

The two presidents agreed to refer the issue to experts from both countries to set the terms and conditions, he added.

Andely said Congo’s debt to China stood at 1.3 trillion CFA francs ($2.4 billion), down from a 2019 government figure of 1.48 trillion CFA francs.

Congo also owes around $1.7 billion to Swiss energy traders Trafigura and Glencore.

It reached a deal with Trafigura, which restructured its loan in March, but has so far failed to reach a similar agreement with Glencore.

The “year of wheat” campaign pushed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in jeopardy after low rainfall risked leaving an import gap of at least 1.5 million tonnes, according to preliminary estimates by officials and experts.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has been pushing a campaign called “the year of wheat”. But instead he’s facing a year of drought.

A lack of rainfall risks leaving an import gap of at least 1.5 million tons – that Syria’s Minister of Agriculture has put down to climate change.

The harvest has dropped this year by around 50 percent – says Farmer Imad al Sayyed.

The agricultural blow and lack of funds to finance the imports will add pressure to Syria’s already battered economy.

Russia, one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat and one of Assad’s closest allies, says it’s stepping in to help the country meet the four million tonnes of annual domestic demand.

But its cargoes have been slow to arrive in recent years as funds grew scarce, with publicly available customs data showing no significant supplies to Syria.

Officials and expert estimates show at least 1.5 million tons of wheat imports were needed.

They said a 1.2 million-ton government purchasing target, driven by forced sales to the government, now looked wildly unrealistic.

The country’s bread basket lies in the northeast Hasaka province where much of the country’s cereals crop is in the hands of breakaway Kurds.

Damascus is unlikely to get any supplies from farmers under the Kurdish-led administration there, where over 60 percent of the country’s wheat is grown.

The U.S Commerce Department said Monday it was rescinding a list of prohibited transactions with TikTok and WeChat that were issued in September as the Trump administration sought to block new U.S. downloads of both Chinese-owned apps.

The U.S. Commerce Department said it was rescinding a list of prohibited transactions with TikTok and WeChat that was put in place in September, as then-President Trump looked to block new U.S. downloads of both Chinese-owned apps and other transactions that would’ve effectively banned the use of either app in the U.S.

This is the latest reversal under the new Biden Administration.

Earlier this month, President Biden withdrew a series of Trump executive orders that sought to block TikTok and WeChat and ordered the Commerce Department to review national security concerns posed by the two apps and others.

The Commerce Department was given 120 days to monitor software apps like TikTok and make recommendations on how to protect U.S. data acquired or accessible by companies that are controlled by foreign adversaries.

A separate U.S. national security review of TikTok, which was launched in 2019, still remains active.