MEDIA MARKET DATA - World Association of Newspapers

of the secretary of state in establishing the Global Internet Freedom Task Force. Thisembraces the government-to-government approach that Yahoo has been urging," said Yahoospokeswoman Mary Osako. Yahoo issued a rallying cry for online freedom Monday inresponse to criticism over its cooperation with the Chinese government. Microsoft, Google,Yahoo and Cisco Systems have all agreed to appear before a House of Representatives humanrights panel, which summoned them following public outcry over their compliance withBeijing. Yahoo allegedly assisted Beijing authorities to track down and jail a journalist andcyber dissident, while Cisco's technology-savvy machinery is reportedly used to censorInternet messages and track down cyber dissidents. Google and top computer software makerMicrosoft have both admitted cooperating with Beijing to censor websites. By complyingwith China's demand for censorship in order to enter the Chinese market, some of theAmerican Internet firms in essence have become "a megaphone for communist propagandaand a tool for controlling public opinion," said Chris Smith, who will co-chair the hearing.The Republican Representative, who heads the House subcommittee on global human rightsand international operations, is drafting legislation imposing curbs on Internet companiesseeking to expand into China. Civil liberties groups also have accused the US administrationof threatening privacy rights through eavesdropping without court warrants on e-mail andtelephone communications as part of Washington's "war on terror." AFP; February 14, 2006Freedom of the PressSwitzerlandThe upper crust or sophisticated business clients of a Swiss private bank would appear to beunlikely investors in sometimes rabble-rousing "media heroes" in developing or emergingnations. But Zurich's Vontobel Bank believes there is sufficient demand to warrant aninnovative investment fund aimed specifically at providing independent newspapers, radio,TV or other media with the kind of finance that allows freedom of the press to flourish."There are quite a few high net-worth individuals who don't just want a financial return," saidClaudia Kraaz, a spokeswoman for Vontobel. "We really see a growing demand frominstitutional and, above all, private clients for social investments," she added. On May 3,World Press Freedom Day, the bank and its partners announced the 20-million-Swiss-francMedia Development fund that will be launched on financial markets later this month. About80 percent of it will be a conventional fixed term, five-year investment, providing a steadySwiss-style financial return to investors. The rest will be a loan at an interest rate of onepercent per year to the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF), an agency set up by a formerhead of the Serbian independent radio station B-92, which was once a thorn in the sideof the Milosevic regime. "It won't be a product that sells in the hundreds of millions of Swissfrancs," Kraaz acknowledged. "But there is a demand, we've been seeing that lately." On thefinancial side, Vontobel provided the structure and management of the bond-like fund, whilethe Swiss government's development cooperation agency guaranteed the secondary marketliquidity to ensure it remains tradeable. A Swiss social investment company that mainly dealswith microfinance, 'ResponsAbility' -- partly owned by Vontobel, other banks and thereinsurer Swiss Re -- chose MDLF and will maintain oversight over its recommendedbeneficiary. ResponsAbility argues that there is an important link between economicgrowth and information. It points to a World Bank study that lauded "reliable, currentindependent information", saying it was essential for "good" economic decisions. And ashortage of a decent standard of information in some countries is not only a consequence ofoutright censorship, but also economic reality, the fund's partners argue. MDLF founder andhead, Sasa Vucinic, left Serbia in March 1993, setting up his agency two years later toprovide loans on favourable conditions to independent media in emerging democracies.64