Word: slim
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...this case, Gonzales v. Carhart. It's the first time that the court has blessed a federal ban on an abortion method, and a serious blow to the longstanding rule that abortion restrictions must permit the procedure when necessary to preserve a woman's health. The slim majority here - five conservative justices led by Anthony Kennedy - skirted that rule by saying medical experts can't agree whether a woman would ever need this method to stay healthy (the law does contain an exception if the woman's life is at stake). So, they argued, the absence of a health exception...
...result, Slim, still relatively unknown outside Mexico, seems destined in the coming year to be more than a rising name on the pages of Forbes. He's likely to become a poster boy of sorts in the ongoing cacophony over hemispheric issues like illegal immigration. One of the stiffest challenges facing Mexico's conservative new President, Felipe Calderon, is the creation of almost a million new, decent-paying jobs a year. But first, say most economists, Calderon has to accept a task that Mexican governments historically have dismissed - that is, regulate the monopolies, which lord over every industry from cement...
...which explains why few Mexicans were doing hat dances this week when Forbes announced that Slim, 67, had suddenly passed U.S. investment wizard Warren Buffett ($52 billion) as the world's second-richest person - and may well topple Gates as Numero Uno by the time next year's list is unveiled. Whereas Gates' wealth reflects America's tech leadership, Slim's riches -despite the sweat and savvy that built them - tend to symbolize Mexico's archaic system of monopolies and oligopolies, which helps keep almost half the nation's population in poverty by choking oxygen away from the rest...
...Slim, fairly or not, is often fingered for some of the obstacles facing Mexico's underdogs. According to the Paris-based Organisation of Economic Cooperation & Development, for example, Telmex, which is the flagship of Slim's Grupo Carso and which controls 90% of Mexico's telephone market, charges small businesses some of the highest fees in the world. Telmex insists those charges have dropped considerably in recent years; but the situation points up the distortions that many feel help keep Mexico underdeveloped...
...credit, Slim, a widely respected figure and the son of a Lebanese immigrant, seems to be acknowledging the problem. He has accepted, for example, a rare move by Mexico's Federal Competition Commission to block Telmex from expanding into cable television until it allows all competitors to be smoothly hooked up to its telecom services. And he is lifting his charitable profile, announcing he'll pour $10 billion over the next four years into his health- and education-related Fundacion Carso. Business and philanthropy experts alike hope these developments will help prime the pump not only in Mexico but throughout...