1.   Catherine spoke with unusual authority at a time when men held a near monopoly on religious power in the church.

2.   Until this time, Episcopalians enjoyed a near monopoly south of Maryland.

3.   Bureaucracies need to have a near monopoly of political and administrative information.

4.   They have discovered that Oxford has a near monopoly of complaints over breaches of the voluntary advertising code, compared to the rest of the country.

5.   And Dragan Tomic, the speaker of the parliament, is director of NIS Jugopetrol, which has a near monopoly on oil.

6.   Azcarraga was the power behind the Grupo Televisa communications conglomerate, which enjoyed a near monopoly on television broadcasting in Mexico for three decades.

7.   British Gas has seen its near monopoly on natural gas supply in Britain eroded by competition as the government has opened up parts of the U.K. market.

8.   But the competition Intel faces in the networking market is a far cry from its near monopoly of high-margin microprocessors.

9.   Christianity, while still the overwhelming religious choice for Americans, has lost its near monopoly on the care of souls in the West.