[VRM]

Wes,
I spent a few months in China in the mid 90's. They already had limits to internet access back then, even though there were only 6-10K people in the entire country that had access. I ended up spending some time with my IT guy to set up a jump server just to get to most of the sites I wanted to get to. I suspect now that they have 6-10K people just figuring out what sites to restrict.
I've found blogs to be a good source of information from places like Iraq. Obviously, it has to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt, but it certainly provides a contrast to what we get over here.

I've actually had good luck with local news sites. They usually post the same stories that go in the printed versions, and they are usually a lot more than just the short soundbites that show up on Fox or CNN.

Steve