Hi Fuji and John,

Thanks for your helpful suggestions, and yes I'm trying to traverse a site that is parallel to the one I'm working on, so I can source the latest news items from multiple sites for good SEO.

I tried GetXMLNodeById http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/umbracolibrary/getxmlnodebyid-(1) and it worked a treat.

Cheers
Adam 

Code below

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xsl:stylesheet [ <!ENTITY nbsp "&#x00A0;"> ]>
<xsl:stylesheet 
    version="1.0" 
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" 
    xmlns:msxml="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
    xmlns:umbraco.library="urn:umbraco.library" xmlns:Exslt.ExsltCommon="urn:Exslt.ExsltCommon" xmlns:Exslt.ExsltDatesAndTimes="urn:Exslt.ExsltDatesAndTimes" xmlns:Exslt.ExsltMath="urn:Exslt.ExsltMath" xmlns:Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions="urn:Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions" xmlns:Exslt.ExsltStrings="urn:Exslt.ExsltStrings" xmlns:Exslt.ExsltSets="urn:Exslt.ExsltSets" 
    exclude-result-prefixes="msxml umbraco.library Exslt.ExsltCommon Exslt.ExsltDatesAndTimes Exslt.ExsltMath Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions Exslt.ExsltStrings Exslt.ExsltSets ">


<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>

<xsl:param name="currentPage"/>
<xsl:variable name="SortOrder" select="$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/data [@alias = 'brandSortOrder']" />  
<xsl:variable name="SortBy" select="$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/data [@alias = 'brandSortBy']" />
<xsl:variable name="NumberofItemsToDisplay" select="$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/data [@alias = 'numberBrandArticlesFatFooter']" />
<xsl:variable name="news-articles1" select="3949" />
<xsl:variable name="news-articles2" select="4569" />
<xsl:variable name="news-articles3" select="2599" />
<xsl:variable name="news-articles4" select="2451" />

<!-- We need to set data-type to number or text depending on what sortby equals -->
<xsl:variable name="DataType">  
    <xsl:choose>  
        <xsl:when test="$SortBy='sortOrder'">  
            <xsl:value-of select="'number'" />  
        </xsl:when>  
        <xsl:otherwise>  
            <xsl:value-of select="'text'" />  
        </xsl:otherwise>  
    </xsl:choose>  
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:template match="/">

<div id="fat-footer">
    <ul class="fixedwidthcentered nolist clearfix" id="brands">
        <li><a href="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand1URL']}" title="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand1LCaption']}"><img src="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand1Logo']}" alt="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand1Caption']}" /></a></li>
        <li><a href="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand2URL']}" title="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand2LCaption']}"><img src="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand2Logo']}" alt="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand2Caption']}" /></a></li>
        <li><a href="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand3URL']}" title="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand3LCaption']}"><img src="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand3Logo']}" alt="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand3Caption']}" /></a></li>
        <li><a href="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand4URL']}" title="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand4LCaption']}"><img src="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand4Logo']}" alt="{$currentPage/ancestor-or-self::node/descendant-or-self::data[@alias='footerBrand4Caption']}" /></a></li>
    </ul>
    <ul class="fixedwidthcentered nolist" id="brands-data">
        <li class="col" id="col1">
            <ul>
                <xsl:for-each select="umbraco.library:GetXmlNodeById($news-articles1)/node[string(data [@alias='umbracoNaviHide']) != '1']">
                    <!--order="{$SortOrder}" -->
                    <xsl:if test="position()&lt;= $NumberofItemsToDisplay">
                        <li class="ffitem">
                            <a href="{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)}" title="{./data [@alias = 'PageTitle']}">
                                <xsl:value-of select="concat(substring(umbraco.library:StripHtml(./data[@alias = 'PageTitle']),1,25),'...')" />
                            </a>
                        </li>
                    </xsl:if>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </ul>
            </li>
        <li class="col" id="col2">
            <ul>
                <xsl:for-each select="umbraco.library:GetXmlNodeById($news-articles2)/node[string(data [@alias='umbracoNaviHide']) != '1']">
                    <!--order="{$SortOrder}" -->
                    <xsl:if test="position()&lt;= $NumberofItemsToDisplay">
                        <li class="ffitem">
                            <a href="{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)}" title="{./data [@alias = 'PageTitle']}">
                                <xsl:value-of select="concat(substring(umbraco.library:StripHtml(./data[@alias = 'PageTitle']),1,25),'...')" />
                            </a>
                        </li>
                    </xsl:if>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </ul>
            </li>
        <li class="col" id="col3">
            <ul>
                <xsl:for-each select="umbraco.library:GetXmlNodeById($news-articles3)/node[string(data [@alias='umbracoNaviHide']) != '1']">
                    <!--order="{$SortOrder}" -->
                    <xsl:if test="position()&lt;= $NumberofItemsToDisplay">
                        <li class="ffitem">
                            <a href="{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)}" title="{./data [@alias = 'PageTitle']}">
                                <xsl:value-of select="concat(substring(umbraco.library:StripHtml(./data[@alias = 'PageTitle']),1,25),'...')" />
                            </a>
                        </li>
                    </xsl:if>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </ul>
            </li>
        <li class="col nomarr" id="col4">
            <ul>
                <xsl:for-each select="umbraco.library:GetXmlNodeById($news-articles4)/node[string(data [@alias='umbracoNaviHide']) != '1']">
                    <!--order="{$SortOrder}" -->
                    <xsl:if test="position()&lt;= $NumberofItemsToDisplay">
                        <li class="ffitem">
                            <a href="{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(@id)}" title="{./data [@alias = 'PageTitle']}">
                                <xsl:value-of select="concat(substring(umbraco.library:StripHtml(./data[@alias = 'PageTitle']),1,25),'...')" />
                            </a>
                        </li>
                    </xsl:if>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </ul>
            </li>
    </ul>
</div>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>