It's well worth exploring Storm Petrel, the web site of Economist correspondent Jonathan Ledgard. I became friends with Jonathan when he was living in Prague, covering Central and Eastern Europe for the Economist; now he's in Kabul, covering Central Asia.

Jonathan described his web site to me as a sort of "anti-blog" that will be updated about once a month or so. But since he's an incredibly well traveled person and knows lots of really weird stuff, there's plenty of material here to keep you satisfied for a while.