Hi,

> 	<xsl:variable name="forcountry" select="GB"/>
> 	<xsl:include href="secondxsl.xsl"/>
[snip]
> <xsl:if test="metadata[countryname=$forcountry]">
[snip]
> But, it seems that the value of forcountry is blank within 
> secondxsl.xsl.

Are you sure it's not an empty string in the first stylesheet too? Just a quess, but you're trying to bind the $forcountry to a node-set of nodes with the name "GB" and and as your variable is a top-level element, the root element of your source tree should then be "GB". If you want to bind the $forcountry to a string "BG", use 

  <xsl:variable name="forcountry" select="'GB'"/>

Hopefully I didn't answer a wrong question again,

Jarno