This is a continuation of our earlier investigation (Gurtuet al 1974Phys. Lett.50 B 391) on multiparticle production in proton-nucleus collisions based on an exposure of emulsion stack to 200 GeV/c beam at the NAL. It is found that the ratioR_em = 〈n_s〉/〈n_ch〉, where 〈n_ch〉 is the charged particle multiplicity in pp-collisions, increases slowly from about 1 at 10 GeV/c to 1·6 at 68 GeV/c and attains a constant value of 1·71 ± 0·04 in the region 200 to 8000 GeV/c. Furthermore,R_em = 1·71 implies an effectiveA-dependence ofR_A =A^0.18,i.e., a very weak dependence. Predictions ofR_em on various models are discussed and compared with the emulsion data. Data seem to favour models of hadron-nucleon collisions in which production of particles takes place through adouble step mechanism,e.g., diffractive excitation, hydrodynamical and energy flux cascade as opposed to models which envisage instantaneous production.

Recent results from the LEP collider at CERN are presented: on the identification of e⁺e⁻ → W⁺W⁻ and the determination of the W mass and width and limits on its anomalous couplings; the search for the Standard Model and non-minimal Higgs; search for SUSY and other new particles. Fits to all electroweak data leading to predictions of the Higgs mass within the Standard Model are presented.