Juan Cole

One of the best sources of information about the Middle East and Central Asia, with real context and understanding, is Professor Juan Cole's blog. I find extremely useful as a way to synthesize and think about the news from there even though I have a lot of background (and on at least one occasion, pointed out what I thought was an omission in his analysis that he agreed with me about, regarding Lebanon's history several years ago); if you're newly paying attention to countries whose backgrounds you're less familiar with, Juan Cole is the best way to catch up while following current events at the same time.