COUNTRIES = (
('AF', (u'Afghanistan')),
('AX', (u'\xc5land Islands')),
('AL', (u'Albania')),
('DZ', (u'Algeria')),
('AS', (u'American Samoa')),
('AD', (u'Andorra')),
('AO', (u'Angola')),
('AI', (u'Anguilla'))
)
print (country for (code, country) in COUNTRIES if code=='AD').next()
#>>> Andorra
print next((country for (code, country) in COUNTRIES if code=='AD'), None)
#Andorra
print next((country for (code, country) in COUNTRIES if code=='Blah'), None)
#None
# If you want to do multiple lookups, the best is to make a dict:
d = dict(COUNTRIES)
print d['AD']
#>>> Andorra