CEEMEA news sources?

April 16, 2008 6:55 AM

Best/accurate/easy to access sources of Central & Eastern Europe and Middle East / Africa (CEEMEA) news? Global newspapers or local? Which are best?

Beginning to research health care in emerging market countries (Central Eastern Europe, Russia, CIS, Middle East, Africa) but am wondering if anyone has insight into particularly good news sources, ie. ones that have a good pulse on the local sentiment but can be accessed from afar.

Right now I am reading the Economist, NYT and WSJ. Economist is at times too macro (I am specifically interested in health care issues at a a regional/local level) and I presume there is bias to NYT and WSJ, but already have subscriptions so its a sunk cost.

Would I be better off reading major Euro news papers online? If so, which are best?

Would I benefit from hunting for regional/national papers, and if so, which are are most independent from the gov?

Countries of particular interest: Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, South Africa

Thank you!

posted by keasby to media & arts (7 answers total)

For Egypt, try Al-Ahram, which is published weekly in English. Tends to be focused on geopolitical issues, but is fairly independent.
posted by j1950 at 7:07 AM on April 16, 2008

Allafrica does some nice aggregation across the continent
posted by gadha at 7:12 AM on April 16, 2008

The World Health Organization publishes a lot of reports, bulletins, and the like about worldwide health issues.
posted by derMax at 7:34 AM on April 16, 2008

I browse the Budapest Business Journal for news - bbj.hu. Its main focus is (not surprisingly) Hungary, but news from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe also comes up.
posted by that possible maker of pork sausages at 11:36 AM on April 16, 2008

For the the Central Asian CIS states, check out EurasiaNet.
posted by Cucurbit at 3:34 PM on April 16, 2008

Oops -- meant to write "for the Central Asian and Caucasian CIS states . . ."
posted by Cucurbit at 3:36 PM on April 16, 2008

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Set up during the Communist era to get news and information to the people behind the iron curtain about what was really going on in their government. The mission is still the same, but the scope of countries and issues has widened.

Also if you use the drop down menu and go to a specific country, then on the right hand side of the screen click on Links Library for xxx country, you will find some more news links for that country, some of which may be health care specific.
posted by KoobieKitten at 9:42 PM on April 16, 2008