The World This Week

AFTER-SHOCKS from the collapse of the Soviet empire keep juddering through Europe. This week sees an attempt to deal with those who tramp the continent in search of a refuge.

The main intent seems to be to put up more barriers. Interior ministers from 35 European countries meet in Budapest today and tomorrow to try to stem the flow of illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe to the west. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees will take part, and Canada and Argentina - who are willing to continue their tradition of taking in suitable immigrants from Eastern Europe - are sending observers.

Hungary complains it has become too popular as a transit route. 'Citizens of 118 countries of the world have attempted to cross Hungary's borders illegally over the past two years,' according to Andras Glaszecsy, the former secret services chief. It was like being 'in the middle of a busy crossroads,' he grumbled. Since 1991, Hungarian border guards have turned away more than a million people without money or proper documents.

Remedies under consideration include stiffer penalties for smuggling immigrants, special units to deal with illegal migration, exchanging information and unifying border controls.

In another symptom of the shakeout in Central European borders, MPs in Slovakia elect the country's first president today and tomorrow. This follows elections last month in which none of the four candidates in the two rounds won the required three-fifths majority in parliament. This time there is only one candidate: Michal Kovac, deputy chairman of the ruling Movement for a Democratic Slovakia.

The juddering has been brought to a halt in one corner of the former empire. This week is the last chance to take the train from Moscow to Baku, before the Russians bring the passenger service to an end on Sunday. They blame the closure on high crime and low bookings.

Germany's Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel, visits Ukraine today and tomorrow to urge President Leonid Kravchuk to give up its surplus weaponry and patch up its row with Russia. The Russians will be keeping an eye on things: they do not want to see the Ukrainians cosying up to the Germans and getting them to state that Crimea belongs to Ukraine. The Germans, for their part, are unlikely to make explicit their tacit approval of Ukraine's claim to Crimea - for fear of offending President Boris Yeltsin.

Ukraine is auctioning off some state companies, mostly shops, in Lvov on Wednesday. Officials believe Lvov is more prepared for privatisation than other former Soviet cities: it became part of the Soviet empire only in 1939, so some residents still remember what private ownership was like.

Talking of privatisation, time was when Fidel Castro would have fought to the last drop of blood to keep multinational oil monopolies from exploiting his socialist fatherland. But on Wednesday, turning in desperation to international imperialism to fend off economic disaster, Cuba is inviting foreign companies to explore and develop onshore and offshore oil sites. Cuba has identified 25 prospective oilfields, one of which, near the beach paradise of Varadero, could contain more than 1 billion barrels of oil.

Also engaged in a hazardous game, Diego Maradona, Argentine football hero and reformed cocaine-user, makes a triumphal return to the Argentine national team for a big match against Brazil on Thursday. The intervention of his admirer President Carlos Menem may extricate him from his contract with Sevilla of Spain, and from charges of tax fraud in Italy.

Maradona's predicament cannot compare, however, with that of the disgraced former president of Brazil, Fernando Collor de Mello, who goes on trial for fraud and corruption today. But he should take comfort from his private soothsayer who predicts that he, too, will eventually return triumphant. Mr Collor can at least forget his troubles during carnival, which opens in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday. No such luck for the Argentines, whose carnival is cancelled because of a renewed outbreak of cholera in the country's poor north.