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
Athens News Agency English (since 1992). The ANA employs about 250 persons, of which 180 are journalists, and has offices in Brussels, Istanbul, Nicosia and Berlin and correspondents in Washington, New York, Montreal, Melbourne, London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Belgrade, Skopje etc. ANA's General Director is Ilias Matsikas, a former senior editor with the Athens mass daily "Ta Nea". The managing director is noted Greek journalist and international political analyst Nicolas Voulelis, while the Special English Service (wire service) and the electronic "Daily Bulletin" is headed by H.K. (Harry) Tzanis, a University of Houston journalism school graduate. Athens News Agency The Athens News Agency