YANGON (Reuters) - Foreigners will not need a local partner to set up businesses in Myanmar, in line with current legislation, and may be granted a five-year tax holiday from the start of commercial operations, according to the draft of a new investment law obtained by Reuters The long-awaited new investment regulations come after plans to float its currency, the kyat, from April, one of the boldest economic reforms since resource-rich Myanmar emerged from decades of dictatorship last year, its economy decimated by chronic mismanagement and trade-crippling sanctions. ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Armed opposition groups in Syria have kidnapped, tortured and executed members of the security forces and supporters of President Bashar al-Assad, the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The rights group condemned the tactics by opposition fighters, who have long accused government troops and loyalists of carrying out similar abuses. ...

(Reuters) - Desert Trails Elementary School in the impoverished town of Adelanto, California, has been failing local kids for years. More than half the students can't pass state math or reading tests. On Tuesday, the school board will discuss a radical fix: a parent takeover of the school. For the moms and dads, it's a local, and intensely personal, debate. ...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will urge its airlines not to take part in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a senior official said, the latest salvo in an escalating row over an EU law requiring all flights in and out of Europe to pay for their emissions. China in February said its airlines were barred from participating in the scheme unless they get government approval to do so. Beijing has also suspended the purchase of $14 billion worth of planes for Europe's Airbus due to the dispute. ...

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebels have freed an army general abducted in the Damascus suburb of Douma in return for prisoners and bodies of rebels and civilians held by police, an opposition source familiar with the deal said on Tuesday. "Naeem Khalil Odeh has been released in return for several prisoners and 14 bodies," the source said by telephone from Douma, referring to the general, who was seized in the suburb last week. (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shortly after taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama set the goal of eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons as a central theme of his presidency and pledged dramatic steps to lead the way. But after lofty rhetoric and a few steps forward, Obama is facing fresh doubts about whether he is willing to take the political, diplomatic and budgetary risks that may be needed to bring his vision closer to reality. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Like everyone, Iranians need diapers. Fred Harrington has built a business by selling Iran the raw materials to make them. The Redmond, Washington, businessman, who exports to Iran under a humanitarian license from the U.S. Treasury Department, says he is owed close to $3.8 million by Iranian companies who cannot pay him because of the latest U.S. and European Union sanctions. He is not alone. U.S. firms from major drug makers like Merck & Co. to mom-and-pop outfits like Harrington's American Pulp & Paper Corp. ...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that the situation in Syria was unacceptable and called for the international community to speak with one voice and for Security Council members to display unity. The United Nations priorities were stopping the violence and starting political dialogue, Ban told an audience in Bogor, Indonesia, during a visit to Southeast Asia. Rebels fought gunbattles with government forces in Damascus in the most violent clashes Syria's capital has seen in the year-old revolt. ...

(Reuters) - Troops in Myanmar have murdered, tortured and raped civilians since fighting with separatists flared up around nine months ago in northern Kachin State, leading to the displacement of 75,000 people, a rights group said on Tuesday. Government soldiers had blocked humanitarian aid and attacked innocent people with light and heavy weapons, burning down entire villages, abducting women and forcing children as young as 14 to become porters, according to a report from Human Rights Watch (HRW). ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple isn't the only prominent company that analysts have tagged as a potential source of dividend payouts. Investors can target the sweet spot of reliable income and share price gains by buying companies that are likely to initiate or increase dividends. With nearly $100 billion in cash on its balance sheet, Apple will initiate a dividend and share buyback that will total $45 billion over three years. A quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share will begin in July, marking Apple's 's first such payout since 1995. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is considering several options for modifying controversial night raids in Afghanistan to help secure a bilateral agreement outlining the future U.S. presence there, a U.S. official said on Monday. The United States hopes it can wrap up a long-delayed strategic partnership agreement with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai ahead of a summit in Chicago in May, where NATO nations are expected to outline their path out of the more than 10-year Afghan war. ...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Monday he had information about a plot to assassinate opposition rival Henrique Capriles, who hopes to block his bid for re-election in October. "The head of intelligence met with a team of the Miranda governor, because there's some information out there that they want to kill him," Chavez said in a phone call to state TV. ...

LANSING, Kansas (Reuters) - The U.S. soldier implicated in the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan "doesn't remember" the incident, his lawyer said on Monday after their first face-to-face meeting in a military detention center in Kansas. "He doesn't remember everything about the evening in question," attorney John Henry Browne told reporters outside his hotel in Lansing, Kansas, on Monday evening, after meeting with U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. "That doesn't mean he has amnesia. There are a lot of other options. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Europe was only at the initial stages of a long and difficult path toward fiscal sustainability and warned heavily indebted countries not to resort to draconian measures to fix their budgets, according to congressional testimony released on Monday. "Economic growth is likely to be weak for some time. The path of fiscal consolidation should be gradual with a multiyear phase-in of reforms," Geithner said in remarks prepared for delivery to the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Europe was only at the initial stages of a long and difficult path toward fiscal sustainability and warned heavily indebted countries not to resort to draconian measures to fix their budgets, according to congressional testimony released on Monday. "Economic growth is likely to be weak for some time. The path of fiscal consolidation should be gradual with a multiyear phase-in of reforms," Geithner said in remarks prepared for delivery to the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. ...

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - The Idaho Senate on Monday approved a measure requiring women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound before ending a pregnancy, joining a number of states passing ultrasound measures to discourage abortions. The bill now heads to the state House of Representatives, where it was expected to pass. Idaho's Republican Governor, C.L. "Butch" Otter has not yet said whether he would sign the bill into law and a spokesman declined to comment on Monday. ...

(Reuters) - The U.S. soldier implicated in the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan "has no memory" of the incident, his lawyer said on Mo nday after their first face-to-face meeting, according to CBS News. "He has no memory of... he has an early memory of that evening. And he has a later memory of that evening but he does not have memory in between," attorney John Henry Browne told CBS in an interview after speaking with U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. The interview is set to air later this evening. ...

(Reuters) - A U.S. soldier implicated in the massacre of 16 villagers in Afghanistan was expected to have his first meeting with his defense team on Monday. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales has been in solitary confinement at a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, since arriving there on Friday. Bales, 38, a four-tour combat veteran, is suspected of walking off his base in southern Afghanistan on March 11 and gunning down the 16 civilians, including nine children and three women, in a massacre that damaged U.S.-Afghan relations. Bales has not yet been charged. ...

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Fed by an international petition and celebrity tweets, public outrage is spreading over the Florida case of a white vigilante neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager and escaped arrest. More than 435,000 people, many alerted by tweets from celebrities like movie director Spike Lee and musician Wyclef Jean, signed a petition on Change.org, a social action website, calling for the arrest of the shooter, George Zimmerman. The campaign is the third largest in Change. ...

(Reuters) - Desert Trails Elementary School in the impoverished town of Adelanto, California, has been failing local kids for years. More than half the students can't pass state math or reading tests. On Tuesday, the school board will discuss a radical fix: a parent takeover of the school. For the moms and dads, it's a local, and intensely personal, debate. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time in six months on Monday to discuss the long-stalled Middle East peace process, the White House said. White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement that Obama called Abbas and told him the United States was committed to Middle East peace. He told Abbas both sides need to reinforce the efforts that have brought an end to recent fighting and to avoid provocative actions. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With just five days to go for nations to put forward nominees to lead the World Bank, there are few signs the United States has finalized its choice to lead the global development lender. The United States has held the presidency of the Bank since its founding after World War Two, while a European has always led its sister institution - the International Monetary Fund. But Washington has yet to publicly identify a candidate and some observers think the delay could signal that the White House is having a hard time convincing high-level officials to take the job. ...

MOLINE, Illinois (Reuters) - Republican White House hopeful Rick Santorum said on Monday he did not care about the U.S. unemployment rate, perhaps the nation's most closely watched economic indicator, despite being embroiled in a campaign largely focused on the still-sputtering economy. "I don't care what the unemployment rate is going to be. It doesn't matter to me. ...

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) - French police scoured southwestern France on Tuesday to find a gunman who shot dead three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in the city of Toulouse, prompting President Nicolas Sarkozy to put the region on its highest terrorism alert. More than 100 police officers were dispatched to the area to hunt for the gunman, who is also a prime suspect in the killing of three soldiers in two separate shootings last week in Toulouse and the nearby town of Montauban, to the north. ...