MEDIA REACTION: MILLENNIUM ACCOUNT / ICANN

UNCLAS SAN SALVADOR 003214

SIPDIS

STATE FOR INR/R/MR, WHA/CEN, WHA/PDA, R, IIP/T/GIC
AMEMBASSIES FOR PAS, POL, USAID

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR ES KPAO MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE ACCOUNT
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: MILLENNIUM ACCOUNT / ICANN



1. Millennium Challenge Account

"Namibia and El Salvador," op-ed in moderate "La Prensa
Grfica "(circ. 100,000) on Sunday, November 13, by
columnist and National Development Commission member Sandra
de Barraza:

"Namibia is now getting national attention because we will
be competing against this country for US$450 million of
Millennium Challenge Account funds.

"Both countries are far behind nations with a greater per
capita income; this is evidenced in annual growth rates of
less than two percent in both countries.

"With the Millennium Account, the northern part of our
country has an opportunity for integral development. [El
Salvador] also has the opportunity.to diminish poverty., to
develop management styles based on effectiveness, to fortify
international alliances for development, to strengthen
democracy, and to maintain an indefatigable fight against
corruption. This is a winning situation for all."


2. ICANN

"Who governs information," op-ed in moderate daily La Prensa
Grfica (circ. 100,000) on Sunday, November 13, by Margarita
Funes, editor of the paper's on-line edition:

"The European Union was the first to withdraw its support
for the Internet Commission on Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN),requesting that administrative control be yielded
to other countries. This week, at the World Summit on the
Information Society, countries like Brazil, China, Cuba and
Iran will request the creation of an international entity to
govern the Internet. Others will request greater UN
participation in ICANN.

"The United States is against giving up its administration
of the World-Wide Web. The U.S. arguments are, first, that
since it was created, the system has worked efficiently.
Second, they are appealing to fears that countries with
little freedom of expression--like Cuba or China--could
meddle with it in a way that would make [the Internet] lose
the essence of why it was created: to be free."


"The owner of the Internet," op-ed by Mexican journalist,
columnist, and Univisin personality Jorge Ramos in the
Sunday, November 13 edition of moderate La Prensa Grfica
(circ. 100,000):

"If I ask `Who owns the Internet?', the most probable answer
is `We all do.' Or, perhaps, `No one does.' Both answers
are wrong. The U.S. owns the Internet, although it lends it
to the rest of the world, and that is precisely what many
countries want to change.

"The U.S. had considered ceding control over the Internet to
an international entity in 2006. Nevertheless, it just
changed its mind.

"Because the Internet is fundamental to the U.S. economy and
d
society, President Bush's government does not want to risk
it falling into anti-American or unfriendly hands.

"If the Internet, for example, were controlled by an
international entity, dictatorships like those in Cuba,
China and Saudi Arabia, or authoritarian governments like
the one in Venezuela, could censor information that
questioned their regimes. Or worse, they could request the
names, addresses and telephone numbers of those who
criticize them through the Internet and then look for them
and jail them under any excuse.

"It is enough to say that the Internet was a U.S. idea,
administered for more than four decades by Americans, with
U.S. technology. The United States is not about to give
away its most important invention since television."

BARCLAY