The World This Week

Iran'S president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, visits China from Wednesday until Saturday and is expected to have discussions on the export to Iran of a Chinese-built nuclear power station. Such transfers of nuclear technology will deepen the West's worries about China's nuclear export policy. The US fears proliferation of nuclear and missile technology in the Middle East and China is the most aggressive salesman for both in the region.

Washington has complained that Peking might secretly be helping Iran to build a nuclear bomb. China denies this, insisting that it helps Iran only with nuclear research for peaceful purposes. But China was furious at the US's decision last week to sell fighter aircraft to Taiwan and may be less disposed to heed Washington's warnings. China, a close friend of Iran, is one of its most important arms suppliers.

President Boris Yeltsin of Russia is to start a visit to Japan on Sunday - provided his bodyguards are satisfied with the security arrangements. Tokyo will not allow Russian bodyguards to bring their arms into Japan, a decision which prompted a senior security guard of Mr Yeltsin's to suggest the visit be postponed.

Behind all this, however, lies the realpolitik: the rise in influence of Russian political hardliners who do not want Mr Yeltsin to get too close to the Japanese and make a deal with them handing over the Kurile Islands, which are claimed by Japan. The dispute is expected to dominate Mr Yeltsin's talks with Japan's Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa.

Mr Yeltsin meets his Lithuanian counterpart, Vytautas Landsbergis, in Moscow tomorrow to sign an agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Elsewhere in eastern Europe, the screws are turning on the old hardliners. The trial resumes in Warsaw on Thursday of the Polish former generals Wladyslaw Ciaston and Zenon Platek, who are accused of ordering the murder in 1984 of the Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko.

Foreign ministers of the Council of Europe meet in Istanbul on Thursday and Friday to review progress in building bridges between Eastern and Western Europe. They have invited foreign ministers from the Commonwealth of Independent States to attend. The council, which aims to promote democracy, has admitted four former Communist countries, and the Baltic states are now pressing to join.

France's President Francois Mitterrand will propose that the council hold its first summit.

The Speaker of the French National Assembly, Henri Emmanuelli, is to be summoned tomorrow or later this week for questioning over illegal party funding of the ruling Socialists dating from when he was the party's treasurer. The timing is acutely embarrassing for France's ruling party as it faces a struggle for credibility in the Maastricht referendum campaign, which opens today.

Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, arrives in London today and has talks tomorrow with John Major and the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, before going to France on Wednesday for talks with Mr Mitterrand. Israel seeks to encourage a European role in the Middle East peace talks, especially in the multilateral talks between Israel and the Arab states. This marks a shift in approach for Israel, which under the previous government of Yitzhak Shamir had always dismissed European participation as irrelevant.

As if the Brazilian President, Fernando Collor de Mello, has not enough to worry about, with the threat of impeachment dangling over him, the country's oil workers are to strike for 24 hours on Wednesday for better pay and benefits. The strike will damage the important petroleum export industry - Brazil is a supplier to the US east coast.

Petrobras, the state oil monopoly, made a new offer last week but the oilworkers' union leader said 'there was no progress whatsoever'. The workers meet on Saturday and Sunday to decide on a possibly longer walkout later this month. Little carnival atmosphere, then, on Brazil's independence day today, when calls for Mr Collor to quit are expected to intensify.

The International Court of Justice rules on Friday in The Hague on a border dispute between El Salvador and Honduras dating from the 1800s. The row, over the right to islands in the Gulf of Fonseca, led to the 1969 'Soccer War', which began when Honduras lost to El Salvador in a World Cup qualifying match. The four- day war, in which 2,000 died, ended with El Salvador seizing several chunks of border land.

The US is to start the countdown on Wednesday for the launch of its 50th space shuttle on Saturday from Cape Canaveral. Among the crew will be the first Japanese on a US space flight, the first married couple in space and the first black female astronaut.

Also on Saturday, Jeanne Moreau and Francis Ford Coppola will receive Golden Lion awards at the Venice Film Festival for their work.