Khaosan Pathet Lao (KPL) was established in 1968 by the revolutionary Lao Patriotic Front in Viengsay, northern Houaphanh Province, with the task of collecting, processing and supplying news and other information to Lao Hak Xat, Lao Issara and Kongthap Pasaxon Lao newspapers, Songsawan magazine and the revolutionary radio stations Pathet Lao Radio and Lao National Radio. It launched its own daily KPL Bulletin in 1970. Following the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos in 1975, KPL became the national news agency, tasked with the supply of domestic and international news to all local media; thereafter the agency continued to publish its daily news bulletins in Lao (KPL Bulletin), English (KPL Bulletin, today the KPL News) and French (Le KPL Quotidien). In 2001 KPL launched a second major national Lao-language daily newspaper, Pathet Lao Daily Newspaper, and in 2003 it upgraded its English-language KPL Bulletin to become the daily newspaper KPL News. As the official information source in the country KPL’s primary task is to collect and supply news to newspapers and radio and TV stations around the country. KPL has four divisions: the Foreign Language Division, which oversees the production of the English-language KPL Bulletin and its French-language centre-spread Le KPL Quotidien; the Lao Language Division, which produces the Pathet Lao Newspaper and the Lao-language version of the KPL Bulletin; the Technical Division, which is responsible for communications technology; and the Administration Division. It operates subject to the guidelines of the Department of Mass Media of the Ministry of Information and Culture, but is not responsible to that department, reporting instead directly to the Minister of Information and Culture. Most employees of KPL have taken short training courses at the National Mass Media Training Centre in Vientiane, with a small number having benefited from overseas training courtesy of Vietnamese, Japanese and European government aid. KPL has correspondents in all of the provinces across the country; in days gone by they communicated with head office by short-wave radio, but in recent years most communication has been undertaken mostly by fax. As yet comparatively few provincial KPL correspondents know how to type or use a computer and virtually none have access to E-mail. KPL has signed bilateral agreements with a number of national news agencies and is a member of the News Pool of Non-Aligned Countries and of the Organisation of Asia Pacific News Agencies (OANA).