Hmm, I wonder if even looking for news interviews from different countries would help you understand accents better? That's what I do when I really need to hear some good ole German accents (mmm, Berlin...)

It's so tough because there isn't ever just one accent XD I can understand people from the east coast of Northern Ireland waaaaaaaaaaaay better than I can understand someone with a very thick accent from the south west. Even when I was up on Orkney at the weekend, I had an awfully hard time trying to understand the people even though technically we were all Scottish XD