After nearly 10 years of struggle, Mexican campesinos fighting to protect their lands from the planned La Parota hydro-dam on the Río Papagayo won a definitive victory with the Aug. 16 signing of the "Cacahuatepec Accords" by Guerrero's Gov. Ángel Aguirre Rivero and the Council of Ejidos and Communities in Opposition to La Parota Dam (CECOP). Under  the agreement, Aguirre has committed the state not to approve La Parota dam if affected communities do not accept it, if they are not justly compensated, or it will impact the environment—effectively ending the project. Aguirre is also committed to seek an audience between CECOP and Mexican President Felipe Calderón to assure a commitment to the same principles from the federal government. La Parota dam would have flooded  17,000 hectares, impacting some 100,000 local residents. 

According to two members of the US Congress, Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), there is evidence that the US-based retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., didn't take legally required steps to prevent money laundering and tax evasion through its Mexican subsidiary, Wal-Mart de México. The allegation appears in an Aug. 14 letter the lawmakers wrote to Wal-Mart Stores CEO Michael Duke complaining that the company has failed to cooperate with their investigation of a $24 million bribery scandal that emerged in April.

According to an Aug. 4 report in the Wall Street Journal, the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles is investigating possible money laundering by Chinese-Mexican pharmaceutical entrepreneur Zhenli Ye Gon in the middle 2000s through the Las Vegas Sands Corp. casino company. The company, whose CEO and largest shareholder is US billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a major donor to the Republican Party, reportedly failed to tell the authorities about suspicious money transfers by Ye Gon until the publication of a newspaper article about him in 2007. Adelson himself is apparently not being investigated at this point.

Six Mexican coal miners were killed on Aug. 3 when some 100 tons of coal and rock collapsed in a mine operated by Altos Hornos de México S.A. de C.V. (AHMSA) in Barroterán community, Progreso municipality, in the northern state of Coahuila. One miner was trapped but survived with minor injuries; he was rescued about an hour after the collapse. The other 287 workers in the mine escaped without injuries. Some workers thought a methane explosion caused the accident, but management attributed it to "a pocket of methane gas," not an explosion.

At an unusual joint press conference in Mexico City on July 19, the presidents of Mexico's governing center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) called on the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) to investigate evidence of money laundering by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). PAN president Gustavo Madero and PRD president Jesús Zambrano cited indications that during the campaign for the July 1 presidential and legislative elections PRI officials moved large sums of money through fake corporations and the Grupo Financiero Monex foreign exchange company in order to circumvent campaign finance restrictions. Madero said there was no implication that the money came from organized crime, but it may have been "stolen, from tax evasion, from companies, from the government, from state governments." (La Jornada, Mexico, July 20)

Thousands of people marched in Mexico City on July 22 to protest what they called the "imposition" of Enrique Peña Nieto, the official winner in the July 1 presidential election, and his party, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Signs and chants emphasized claims that Peña Nieto, the former governor of México state, had won the presidency through fraud, vote buying and biased coverage from the mainstream media, especially the giant television network Televisa, which demonstrators called a "lie factory."

Mexico City residents responded to the country's July 1 presidential and legislative elections with a massive and apparently spontaneous demonstration on July 7 repudiating the official results. Thousands marched from the Angel of Independence to the Zócalo plaza to protest what they called the "imposition" of Enrique Peña Nieto, the presidential candidate of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). They charged his electoral victory was the result of fraud, vote buying and biased publicity by the media.

As of early on July 6, with 99.51% of polling places counted, Mexican officials said former México state governor Enrique Peña Nieto of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had been elected president with 38.22% of the valid votes cast on July 1. Center-left candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador followed with 31.57% of the votes, and Josefina Vázquez Mota from the ruling center-right National Action Party (PAN) came in third with 25.42%. Gabriel Quadri, the candidate of the centrist New Alliance Party (Panal), trailed with 2.28%. The results—which matched a rapid count the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) carried out the evening of July 1—followed a substantial recount of the votes after charges of irregularities.