Mexican Cave Art Offers Peek into Pre-Spanish Past

In the mountains of northeastern Mexico, archaeologists have unearthed thousands of ancient paintings on the walls of caves and ravines from a time before Spanish rule.

The rock art offers rare evidence from native cultures living in the area around the Sierra de San Carlos, a mountain range in Mexico's state of Tamaulipas, researchers say.

Almost 5,000 of these paintings were found across 11 different sites in the region, the researchers said. Created with red, yellow, black and white pigments, the images show animals from deer to lizards to centipedes, as well as people. Depictions of tents, hunting, fishing and possibly astronomical charts also offer a glimpse into the life of this mysterious culture.

The findings document the presence of pre-Hispanic groups, "where before it was said that there was nothing, when in fact it was inhabited by one or more cultures," archaeologist Gustavo Ramirez, of the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History, said in a statement.

The ancient people who once inhabited the mountains of Tamaulipas left very little behind for modern archaeologists to pore over. There is little known of their languages, rituals and customs, besides references to them by conquistadors and friars who colonized and Christianized the region.

Another archaeologist, Martha Garcia Sanchez, said these people were able to resist Spanish rule by living in the mountains, "where they had water, plants and animals to feed themselves."

The rock art was rediscovered in 2006, and archaeologists first started studying the site two years ago. Researchers have not yet been able to precisely date the paintings but further testing on samples of the pigments could reveal the age of the rock art.

"We have not found any ancient objects linked to the context, and because the paintings are on ravine walls and in the rainy season the sediments are washed away, all we have is gravel," said Ramirez.

The findings were presented during the Second Conference of Archaeological History in Mexico City.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Gallery: Europe's Oldest Rock Art Amazing Caves: Pictures of the Earth's Innards In Photos: Enormous Ancient Mexican Temple Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Besieged Mexican town cheers arrival of soldiers

LA RUANA, Mexico (AP) Residents of a western Mexico area who endured months besieged by a drug cartel cheered the arrival of hundreds of Mexican soldiers Monday.

People in La Ruana in Michoacan state lined the main road to greet more than a dozen troop transports and heavily armed Humvees with applause and shouts of joy.

The town's supplies had been blocked after the Knights Templars cartel declared war on the hamlet. The cartel dominates much of the state, demanding extortion payments from businessmen and storeowners, and even low-wage workers.

In February, the town formed self-defense squads to kick the cartel out, drawing the wrath of the gang. Convoys of cartel gunmen attacked the town, which was forced to throw up stone barricades and build guard posts.

Supplies like gasoline, milk and cooking gas began to run low as cartel gunmen threatened to burn any trucks bringing in goods.

On Monday, hundreds of soldiers moved in, erecting checkpoints on the highway leading into La Ruana and setting up an operating base in the town.

"This war has been won!" Hipolito Mora, leader of the self-defense movement, told hundreds of cheering townspeople gathered along the main road, including dozens of self-defense patrol members wearing white T-shirts and carrying shotguns.

Mora said the town had agreed to stop community patrols and let the army take over security in La Ruana. But he said the community would keep its weapons and would start patrols again if the army left.

The idea that troops might come in and seize a town's weapons, or stay only a few weeks, worried people throughout the crime-ridden area. So in town after town along the main highway through Michoacan's hot lowlands known as the Tierra Caliente, self-defense squads welcomed the army's arrival, but vowed to keep their guns.

The highway is littered with the charred hulks of supply trucks, the smoking remains of burned-out sawmills and the fire-blackened walls of fruit warehouses set afire by the Knights Templars cartel in retaliation for the towns' rebellion.

In the nearby town of Buenavista, many of the masked, lightly armed self-defense patrol members manning a highway checkpoint said they welcomed the army but vowed to resist any attempts to take their guns.

They hung a banner beside the roadway: "Gentlemen of the federal police and the Mexican army, we would prefer to die at your hands, than at those of these stupid, stinking scum," it said, referring to the cartel.

A healthy dose of skepticism remained about the chances of success for sending the army into Michoacan a tactic that then-President Felipe Calderon used to launch his offensive against drug cartels in 2006.

The Michoacan-based Knights Templar is, by all accounts, at least as strong today as its predecessor cartel, the La Familia gang, was in 2006. Instead of attacking the cartel's strongholds in nearby cities like Apatzingan, the troops are fighting a sort of rear-guard action, protecting towns outside the main urban areas without going to the root of the problem.

Rafael Garcia Zamora, mayor of Coalcoman, a town largely cut off from the outside world after it formed its own self-defense force last week, said residents welcomed the arrival of troops, but worried the force might soon leave again and expose the town to the cartel's wrath.

"We don't doubt their ability," he said of the army. "But we need them to help us" root out the criminals and not let the cartel continue to grow.

"The government should have mobilized the army to do this 10 or 12 years ago," Garcia Zamora said.

"We have had temporary raids, with three or four thousand soldiers, but they come and they leave. And you know what? Every time after there is a raid, severed heads show up," he said, referring to drug cartel retaliation against those who help the army.

"People have the courage to speak up, but that has its consequences," he said.

Guatemala top court overturns genocide conviction

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) Guatemala's top court has thrown another curve into the genocide case of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, overturning his conviction and ordering that the trial be taken back to the middle of the proceedings.

The ruling late Monday threw into disarray a process that had been hailed as historic for delivering the first guilty verdict for genocide against a former Latin American leader.

Constitutional Court secretary Martin Guzman said the trial needs to go back to where it stood on April 19 to solve several appeal issues.

The ruling came 10 days after a three-judge panel convicted the 86-year-old Rios Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in massacres of Mayans during Guatemala's bloody, 36-year civil war. The panel found after two months of testimony that Rios Montt knew about the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayans in the western highlands and didn't stop it.

The tribunal sentenced the 86-year-old former general to 80 years in prison, drawing cheers from many Guatemalans. It was the first time a former Latin American leader was convicted of such crimes in his home country and the first official acknowledgment that genocide occurred during the war something the current president, retired Gen. Otto Perez Molina, has denied.

Rios Montt's lawyers immediately filed an appeal, and he spent three days in prison before he was moved to a military hospital, where he remains.

The top court on Monday said it threw out his conviction because the trial should have been stopped while appeals filed by the defense were resolved.

Defense lawyer Francisco Garcia Gudiel told The Associated Press by telephone that he would seek the former dictator's freedom on Tuesday.

"There is no alternative," Garcia said. "The court has made a legal resolution after many flaws in the process. Tomorrow we will ask that they liberate the general, who is being imprisoned unjustly."

Representatives of the victims who testified against Rios Montt couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The proceedings, which started in March, had been whipped back and forth ever since April 18, when a Guatemalan judge ordered that the trial should be restarted just as it was nearing closing arguments.

Judge Carol Patricia Flores had been recently reinstated by the Constitutional Court after being recused in February 2012. She ruled that all actions taken in the case since she was first asked to step down were null, sending the trial back to square one.

The next day, April 19, the tribunal hearing the oral part of the trial asked the Constitutional Court to decide if the proceedings should continue.

The trial was suspended for 12 days amid appeals and at times appeared headed for annulment. But it resumed April 30, and on May 10 the three-judge tribunal found Rios Montt guilty after more than 100 witnesses and experts testified about mass rapes and the killings of women and children and other atrocities committed by government troops. Rios Montt ruled Guatemala in 1982-83 following a military coup.

Survivors and relatives of victims had sought for 30 years to bring punishment for Rios Montt. For international observers and Guatemalans on both sides of the war, the trial was seen as a turning point in a nation still wrestling with the trauma of a conflict that killed some 200,000 people.

The defense constantly claimed flaws and miscarriages of justice.

Courts solved more than 100 complaints and injunctions filed by the defense before the trial even started.

Rios Montt's defense team walked out on April 18, arguing that they couldn't continue to be part of such a bad proceeding. When the three-judge tribunal resumed the trial, it ordered two public defenders to represent Rios Montt and his co-defendant, Jose Rodriguez Sanchez.

Rios Montt rejected his public defender and instead brought in Garcia, who was expelled earlier by the tribunal but reinstated by an appeals court.

Garcia had earlier been ordered off the case after he called for the three judges on the tribunal to be removed from the proceedings. He kept trying to have the judges dismissed. And the Constitutional Court ruled Monday that the trial should have been suspended while his appeal was heard.

The trial "was unlawfully reopened," Garcia said at the time.

Obama to meet with China's Xi in California June 7-8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their first meeting since Xi became president in March when they sit down for a June 7-8 summit in Rancho Mirage, California, the White House announced on Monday.

The two leaders are likely to discuss ways to apply pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program after a period of bellicose rhetoric and threats from Pyongyang.

The United States also has concerns about cyber attacks it says are emanating from China. Washington would also like China to allow its currency to rise against the dollar to improve U.S. trade.

American concerns about tensions in the South China Sea due to conflicting territorial claims are also a possible topic of discussion.

"President Obama and President Xi will hold in-depth discussions on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues," the White House said in a statement.

"They will review progress and challenges in U.S.-China relations over the past four years and discuss ways to enhance cooperation, while constructively managing our differences, in the years ahead," it said.

The meeting will be the first between the two leaders since Xi took over as China's president in March.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was willing to work with the United States to strengthen dialogue and cooperation in relations, which he said were "at a new historical period".

"Of course, some differences exist between China and the United States, which require proper and active management by both sides," Hong said. "This year, Sino-U.S. relations have got off to a good start and are facing an important opportunity for development."

Hong said the two leaders would have "comprehensive and in-depth discussions" on a range of issues.

The leaders will meet at Sunnylands, a 200-acre (80-hectare) estate on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage, California. Sunnylands is the former estate of the late philanthropist Walter Annenberg, who frequently hosted President Ronald Reagan there.

The fact that they will devote two days to the talks shows an intent by the two leaders to build a closer relationship. White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon will travel to Beijing to meet Chinese officials May 26-28 to prepare for the Xi visit.

As part of his trip to the Americas, Xi will also make state visits to Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica, China's Foreign Ministry said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Adam Jourdan in Shanghai and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Editing by Eric Beech and Robert Birsel)

Apple, Congress spar over taxes ahead of Tuesday hearing

By Patrick Temple-West and Poornima Gupta

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Using an unusual global tax structure, Apple Inc has kept billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to pay little or no taxes to any government, a Senate report on the company's offshore tax structure said on Monday.

In a 40-page memorandum released a day before Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to testify before Congress, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations identified three subsidiaries that have no "tax residency" in Ireland, where they are incorporated, or in the United States, where company executives manage those companies.

The main subsidiary, a holding company that includes Apple's retail stores throughout Europe, has not paid any corporate income tax in the last five years.

The subsidiary, which has a Cork, Ireland, mailing address, received $29.9 billion in dividends from lower-tiered offshore Apple affiliates from 2009 to 2012, comprising 30 percent of Apple's total worldwide net profits, the report said.

"Apple has exploited a difference between Irish and U.S. tax residency rules," the report said.

Apple said in a comment posted online on Monday it does not use "tax gimmicks." It said the existence of its subsidiary "Apple Operations International" in Ireland does not reduce Apple's U.S. tax liability and the company will pay more than $7 billion in U.S. taxes in fiscal 2013.

Subcommittee staffers said on Monday that Apple was not breaking any laws and had cooperated fully with the investigation.

CODE OVERHAUL SOUGHT

Tuesday's hearing is the second to be held by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the subcommittee, to shed light on the weaknesses of the U.S. corporate tax code. Levin has sought to overhaul the code in Congress.

Lawmakers globally are closely scrutinizing the taxes paid by multinational companies. In Britain, Google faces regulatory inquiries over its own tax policies, while Hewlett-Packard Co and Microsoft Corp have been called to Capitol Hill to answer questions about their own practices.

Corporations must pay the top U.S. 35-percent corporate tax on foreign profits, but not until those profits are brought into the United States from abroad. This exception is known as corporate offshore income deferral.

In submitted testimony ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Apple said any tax reform should favor lower corporate income tax rates regardless of revenue, eliminate tax expenditures and implement a "reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows free movement of capital back to the US."

"Apple recognizes these and other improvements in the U.S. corporate tax system may increase the company's taxes," it said.

Large U.S. companies boosted their offshore earnings by 15 percent last year to a record $1.9 trillion, avoiding hefty tax bills by keeping the profits abroad, according to research firm Audit Analytics.

TAX SCRUTINY

Apple also uses two conventional offshore tax practices typical of multinational companies' tax-avoidance strategies, the report said.

Multinational corporations value goods and services moving across international borders from one corporate unit to another. Known as "transfer pricing," these moves are frequently managed to reduce corporations' global tax costs.

Apple's tax structure highlights flaws in the U.S. corporate tax code so that Congress "can effectively close the loopholes used by many U.S. multinational companies," Arizona Senator John McCain, the subcommittee's top Republican, said in a statement on Monday.

Levin, who announced he will retire at the end of 2014, introduced legislation in February to close tax loopholes. At a news conference on Monday, Levin said his bill should pass independent of any broader tax reform push in Congress.

McCain, the top Republican on the subcommittee, told the joint news conference he would co-sponsor Levin's bill, the first Republican to support the bill. He called Apple's tax practices "egregious, and (a) really outrageous scheme."

Similar legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

Government tax officials from the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department also are scheduled to testify before the subcommittee on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West in Washington and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller, Bernard Orr)