The United States cut its long standing trade benefits with Bangladesh on Thursday in move said to be in response to the poor working conditions within the country's garment industry. 

Although the move is thought not to have a significant impact on Bangladesh's export industry, it is believed that it could encourage similar a move by the European Union, which would have a bigger impact as it is duty free. 

In a statement Obama said, 

The army captain who led the coup in Mali last year has apologised to the people of the country.

Captain Amadou Sanogo said he wanted "to ask for forgiveness from Malians as a whole" for the coup which overthrew the government, leading to conflict with Tuareg rebels and Islamists, who gained control of the north of the country, costing hundreds of lives.

The conflict eventually forced intervention from France, who deployed ground troops to regain northern Mali and bring it back under government control.

After being refused entry to Syria, inspectors appointed by the United Nations, have entered Turkey to gather information about the possible use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war.

The United States and its European allies have concluded that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, which Washington described as the determining factor that pushed them to arm the Syrian rebels.

The United States military’s prosecution of Iraqi war crimes received a huge blow today, after the US military’s highest court overturned a murder conviction against a US marine.

In what newspapers described as the most significant case against American troops from the war in Iraq, the Court of Appeals for Armed Forces concluded that the marine was improperly denied a lawyer when investigators questioned him in Iraq.

The Sudanese ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has warned expelled foreign aid groups not to re-enter the country.

The outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has said that the lack of action in relation to the Syrian conflict was “a stain” on the organisation.

Rice, who will become President Obama’s national security adviser, said that although her time as ambassador was “remarkable”, she regretted not more was done on Syria.

"I particularly regret that the Security Council has failed to act decisively as more than 90,000 Syrians have been killed and millions more displaced," she said.