Here is a small example demonstrating get requests in Python.
pip install requests
And the code itself
import library
import requests
#prepare paramteters
parameters = {'date:':'2000:2010', 'format':'xml'}
#prepare URL
url = 'http://api.worldbank.org/countries/br/indicators/SP.POP.TOTL'
#call get method and save data into the response
r = requests.get(url, params=parameters)
#print the url considering the params
print r.url
#check for status code
statusCode = int(r.status_code)
#if failed request print the mesage, else print response headers and text
if statusCode != 200:
print 'Request Failed'
else:
print r.headers['content-type']
#print r.json() for json requests
print r.text