WHO World Health Organization Country Profiles
Lists basic health information and statistics as well as basic demographic statistics about each country.
Europa World Plus
Great place to get a summary of recent history/events in a country. Covers political and economic information for over 250 countries and territories.
Put out by the Economist, this portal has links to the EIUs quarterly/annual country reports and profiles among other things. This is a good source of information for current developments and trends in political, social and economic affairs across the world, but keep in mind that information here may assume a pro-business slant.
UNESCO MOST Programme
The purpose of this program is to map Social Sciences research to effective policy building. Here you can find policy papers and other publicatons on a variety of topics.
You can also find a variety of useful statistics on education, literacy, science and technology, and much more. in the UNESCO Data Centre. The Global Rankings page is a good place to get a quick overview of an indicator across a region.
For more resources, see this guide -- sources like the World Bank's World Development Indicators Online give you all kinds of stats about a country (# of physicians/population, # of TVs/household, GDP, -- you name it...).
News sources from your country can provide the local perspective on an issue.
Similar to Lexis-Nexis Academic, Factiva is primarily a news database. You can search approximately 8,000 publications in 22 languages (as well as 9,000 Web sites). Great for getting the local perspective on your issue by reading the local newspapers from countries around the world.
World News Connection
A Foreign News Service from the U.S. Government that offers translated and English-language news and information. Includes the local media sources in foreign countries and regions. Compiled from thousands of non-U.S. media sources covering socioeconomic, political, scientific, technical, and environmental issues and events.
The New York Times Health News
For full-text coverage of the US newspaper of record try the Proquest New York Times Database. This database offers superb coverage of national and international news, plus coverage of important speeches and documents, Supreme Court decisions, and presidential press conference transcripts.
BBC Health News
International coverage of health news.