TASS (, "Soobshchyeniye TASS"). TASS included affiliated news agencies in all 14 Soviet republics in addition to Russia: RATAU (Ukrainian SSR, now Ukrinform), BelTA (Byelorussian SSR), ETA (Estonian SSR), Latinform (Latvian SSR, now LETA), ELTA (Lithuanian SSR), ATEM (Moldavian SSR, now Moldpres), Armenpress (Armenian SSR), Gruzinform (Georgian SSR), Azerinform (Azerbaijan SSR, now AZERTAC), UzTAG (Uzbek SSR, now UzA), KazTAG (Kazakh SSR, now Kazinform), KyrTAG (Kyrgyz SSR, now Kabar), Turkmeninform (Turkmen SSR, now TDH) and TajikTA (Tajik SSR, now Khovar). Over the history other affiliates existed, e.g. KarelfinTAG for the Karelo-Finnish SSR. TASS news and photos were received by 4,000 Soviet newspapers,
Fars News Agency Rushdie in regards to The Satanic Verses controversy. Fars promised $30,000 for the killing of Rushdie. Fars News Agency The Fars News Agency is a news agency in Iran. While it describes itself as "Iran's leading independent news agency", it is widely described by news media to be a "semi-official" news agency of the Government of Iran. All its content is Creative Commons licensed. Fars News Agency was founded in 2003. In addition to Persian reporting, the agency also provides news in English, Turkish and Arabic. In June 2012, Fars released an interview with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in which