require 'nokogiri'

dump = Nokogiri::XML(open("dat/regions.xml"))
dump.xpath("//REGION").each do |reg|
        name = reg.xpath("//NAME").text
        sleep(1)
        pop = reg.xpath("//NUMNATIONS").text
        p name.zip(name).flatten(1)
        puts pop
        break
end

============================================

test.rb:8:in `block in <main>': undefined method `zip' for #<String:0x007facaa0f0150> (NoMethodError)
    from /Users/Sam/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/nokogiri-1.5.2/lib/nokogiri/xml/node_set.rb:239:in `block in each'
    from /Users/Sam/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/nokogiri-1.5.2/lib/nokogiri/xml/node_set.rb:238:in `upto'
    from /Users/Sam/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/nokogiri-1.5.2/lib/nokogiri/xml/node_set.rb:238:in `each'
    from test.rb:4:in `<main>'