MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s lower house of Congress gave final approval to a major telecommunications bill early Friday morning, a reform that threatens to loosen tycoon Carlos Slim’s grip on the phone market and broadcaster Televisa’s dominance of the airwaves.

Following more than 14 hours of at times heated debate, lawmakers sent the amended bill to the Mexican Senate for its consideration.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s lower house of Congress gave broad approval Thursday night to a telecommunications reform that threatens to loosen tycoon Carlos Slim’s grip on the phone market and broadcaster Televisa’s dominance of the airwaves.

The proposal attracted overwhelming support, with 414 lawmakers in favor of the reform and only 50 opposed.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican grandmother Lucia Angulo has entered the United States illegally so often over the past three decades that she has lost count of how many times border patrols caught her.

But when she left San Diego to visit her dying mother in Mexico last April, she knew it would be harder than ever to return. Nearly a year later, she was still trying.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican grandmother Lucia Angulo has entered the United States illegally so often over the past three decades that she has lost count of how many times border patrols caught her.

But when she left San Diego to visit her dying mother in Mexico last April, she knew it would be harder than ever to return. Nearly a year later, she was still trying.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The Mexican government’s planned overhaul of its phone and television markets opens up the field to all players, one of the architects of revamp said on Wednesday, which could offer telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim a way into the local TV business.

The telecoms reform bill, presented by President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday, could end broadcaster Televisa’s rule of the airwaves and Slim’s stranglehold on the phone business.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s government has threatened the country’s telecommunications giants with forced asset sales, unveiling a plan to loosen billionaire Carlos Slim’s hold on the telephone market and curb broadcaster Televisa’s dominance of the airwaves.

The long-awaited plan seeks to shake up the telecoms sector by allowing increased foreign ownership of media and phone companies, and giving regulators the power to force asset sales by players controlling more than 50 percent of the market.

MEXICO CITY, March 11 (Reuters) – Mexico’s government
presented on Monday a major reform bill that aims to loosen
billionaire Carlos Slim’s hold on the telecommunications market
and curb top broadcaster Televisa’s rule of the airwaves.

The long-awaited reform could shake up Mexico’s stagnant
telecom market by allowing increased foreign ownership of media
and phone companies in Mexico and give regulators the power to
force incumbent players to sell assets.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s phone and television markets, long dominated by Carlos Slim and his rivals, are facing a game-changing shakeup that could be announced in days, according to one of the political leaders tasked with drafting the reform.

“This (reform) changes the whole board game,” Gustavo Madero, chairman of the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN), told Reuters in an interview.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico must give greater priority to economic cooperation and education in relations with the United States rather than allowing the fight against organized crime to take center stage, a senior Mexican official said on Monday.

Mexico has spent the past six years locked in a bloody fight with powerful drug cartels whose killings, kidnappings and extortion have marred the country’s image, particularly in the United States, where it ships nearly 80 percent of its exports.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The arrest of Mexico’s best-known trade union leader on fraud charges has thrown down the gauntlet to powerful interests standing between President Enrique Pena Nieto and his plans to shake up Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

For a generation, even presidents shied away from taking on teachers’ union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, making her Mexico’s most prominent female politician and a formidable enemy to those who accused her of fostering corruption rather than education.