Here are some ideas to get you started: Your goal now that you have your topic, is to identify an issue within your topic that people are debating/ arguing. So, for example if you wanted to know about energy in a a certain country, you could write into the browser "energy debate nameof yourcountry," and see what you get back. This is a way of finding out what some of the issues within the topic may be. If you find good sites as we go along, let me know and I'll add them to this list.

Your book gives great ideas for sources: Ebsco Host, ProQuest, FirstSearch Databases, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe,JSTOR and there are many more. The chapter is very helpful. The ASU Library is a wonderful resource. If you get stuck you can use "Ask a Librarian" and they will help you online. Some other ideas . . .

See the link on our class site:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~jvanasu/sources.htm
Some great sources for troubled countries are cia.org (overviews)
Think Tanks   search here to find your country.
For Humanitarian Issues related to troubled countries try this site and see where it takes you. Also try http://www.unicef.org/emerg/index_issues.html ; http://ochaonline.un.org/webpage.asp?Nav=_humanissues_en&Site=_humanissues
This should give you some good ideas.

For Energy and Environmental Issuse see

http://www.environcenter.hmc.edu/links.html

International Institute for Energy Conservation

http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/03fal/briefings.asp

Here is a site that has many topics--you can't use the papers, but you can use the resources that are listed. Just click the links and look around.
http://www.debatabase.org