TASS After 1971, TASS was elevated to the status of State Committee at the Government of the Soviet Union. The agency was frequently used as a front organization by the Soviet intelligence agencies, such as the NKVD (later KGB) and Main Intelligence Directorate, with TASS employees serving as informants. In 1959, Alexander Alexeyev was dispatched to Cuba on a fact-finding mission, ostensibly working for TASS. In January 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Presidential Decree signed by Boris Yeltsin re-defined status of TASS and renamed it the "Information Telegraph Agency of Russia". In May 1994 The Russian Government
Bakhtar News Agency Bakhtar News Agency Bakhtar News Agency is the official state news agency of the Afghan government, based in Kabul. The agency is a major source of news for all media in Afghanistan, gathering domestic and international news and providing information to outlets. The government had planned to make the agency independent of government control in 2004 before elections. In 2002, Agence France-Presse established a satellite link providing news information to the Bakhtar News Agency. Established in 1939 by the Government Press Department, it monitors foreign and domestic news before distribution. The English sector of the news distribution was not added