The World This Week

The description 'banana republic', though demeaning, aptly reflects the economic dependence of many Central American countries. Their ministers assemble in San Salvador today and tomorrow to urge EC envoys once again to reduce EC tariff barriers on their banana exports. Their pleas are likely to go unheeded.

This is one of the Community's oldest and bitterest disputes: in 1957 the quarrel over banana imports delayed the signing of the Treaty of Rome by four days. Germany wanted the cheapest possible bananas while France wanted to protect supplies from its Caribbean dependencies of Guadeloupe and Martinique.

When ministers of Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, along with Colombia and Ecuador, meet today they will be smarting from the latest slap in the face from the EC, which last week imposed a new Latin American banana import quota of 2 million tons a year with a 20 per cent tariff to take effect from July. Any exports above the barrier of 2 million tons will attract a prohibitive 170 per cent tariff.

The alarm this prompted in Central America was summed up by the Costa Rican Foreign Minister, Bernd Neihaus, at the weekend: 'For us bananas are a priority. We hope that the European countries will open their eyes to the serious consequences of this new EC regulation.' Costa Rica, the world's largest banana producer after Ecuador, reckons it will lose dollars 100m ( pounds 69m) a year.

The Central Americans argue that the EC tariff violates the free- trade principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) and that the measures will throw tens of thousands out of work and may force producers to turn to less innocent crops such as cocaine. But the Community still wants to protect its traditional suppliers. Since 1957, Britain's former colonies of Jamaica and the Windward and Leeward Islands, and the Spanish Canary Islands have entered the frame.

Meanwhile, a newly united Germany is developing an ever more voracious appetite for cheap bananas, strengthening the Central Americans' hand. But their hand remains weak: a plan to boycott this week's meeting fizzled out and ministers dismiss as impractical plans to defy the EC tariff. They expect, at best, a compromise. After all, how much clout has a banana?

Cuba holds legislative and provincial elections on Wednesday, the first in which voters will directly elect MPs and provincial delegates. Previously they have been elected by municipal councillors. The change was intended by President Fidel Castro to demonstrate Cuba's commitment to democracy in the post-Soviet age. Not all candidates are Communist Party members, but for each seat there will be only one candidate, who has been chosen from an official list on the basis of patriotism and 'ethical values', so Mr Castro, who is standing as candidate in the city of Santiago de Cuba, may be spared any unpleasant surprises. Discontent can be expressed by casting a blank vote.

Cuba, which relies on sugar as much as any banana republic depends on bananas, is suffering its worst economic crisis since the revolution in 1959. The country has been brought to the brink of collapse by the loss of Soviet subsidies and the recent tightening of the US trade embargo.

In Russia, meanwhile, there are faint signs of a Communist revival. The Communist Party, banned in 1991 after the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and partially unbanned in November, presents documents this week to the Justice Ministry to re-register as a party. The party, under Gennady Zyuganov, its newly-elected leader, aims to win support from Russia's newly impoverished white- collar workers and hopes that local branches may be able to recover some of the party's wealth, including property, that was seized by the government.

Russia's Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, meets the US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, in Geneva on Thursday as Mr Christopher travels home at the end of his Middle East tour. They will be making plans for a summit between the US President, Bill Clinton, and the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin. On Friday, Mr Christopher visits Nato headquarters in Brussels to discuss transatlantic links and the former Yugoslavia.

Trade unions in Trinidad and Tobago meet on Thursday to agree on a plan of action to counter government plans to sack 3,000 workers. The government, led by Patrick Manning, the Prime Minister, says the lay-offs are necessary to meet this year's international debt repayments of dollars 653m. So incensed were the unions that they called a general strike for Friday. But, in an indication that the last refuge of a dependent economy may be tourism, the unions' leader, Errol McLeod, called off the strike for fear of endangering the traditional carnival celebrations, which end on Wednesday and attract thousands of visitors every year.