We consider the ``minor'' and ``homeomorphic'' analogues of the maximum clique problem, i.e., the problems of determining the largest $h$ such that the input graph has a minor isomorphic to $K_h$ or a subgraph homeomorphic to $K_h,$ respectively.We show the former to be approximable within $O(\sqrt {n} \log^{1.5} n)$ by ... more >>>