PRAGUE -- Billionaire fund manager George Soros, touting free global access to information, said Wednesday he had invested in Eastern European securities, but investment in the region's media was off-limits. The Hungarian-born financier, who recently broke his self-imposed rule not to invest in Eastern Europe because of conflicts of interest with his own philanthropic projects, said he had modified his stand to allow for trading in securities. "I don't see why we should not invest where there is a viable securities market. We have made investments here," Soros told the opening session of the Internet computer networking conference in Prague. He did not elaborate on which securities his funds had purchased or in which countries he was active. A spokesman for Soros' New York-based Quantum Group of Funds said last month that the group had placed $133 million in projects in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. Quantum took part in a $45 million rights issue and private placement with First Hungary Fund, a Budapest-based equity fund, as well as putting $13.5 million in Agros Holding, a Polish food company, and unspecified amounts in ventures in Russia and the Czech Republic, the spokesman said. Soros said he had not, and would not invest in Eastern European media ventures. He said media investment would clash with his concept of free access to information fostered through his philanthropic institutes called the Foundation for an Open Society which he established in six East European countries.