The Belarusian Telegraph Agency or BelTA (Belarusian: Беларускае Тэлеграфнае Агенцтва, Russian: Белорусское Телеграфное Агентство, БелТА) is the state-owned national news agency of the Republic of Belarus. It operates in the Russian and Belarusian languages.
Founded on December 23, 1918, it cooperated with the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), although it was legally independent of it.
Since Belarusian independence in 1991, it has been the national news agency. It transmits over a hundred daily reports, and provides information to other news agencies of Commonwealth of Independent States members about the activities of Belarusian officials and organizations in and out of the country.
BelTA has offices in all regions of Belarus, as well as in Moscow, Kiev, Warsaw and Vilnius. The main offices are in Minsk, on Kirov Street.
Famous quotes containing the word agency:
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)