We discuss several aspects of rare decays and CP violation in the stan
dard model including the impact of the recent top quark discovery. In
particular we review the present status of next-to-leading QCD calcula
tions in this field stressing their importance in the determination of
the parameters in the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. We emphasize
that the definitive tests of the standard model picture of rare decays
and CP violation will come through a simultaneous study of CP asymmet
ries in B-d,s(0), decays, the rare decays K+ --> pi(+)upsilon ($) over
bar upsilon and K-L --> pi(0) upsilon ($) over bar upsilon, and (B-d(
0) - ($) over bar B-d(0))/(B-s(0) - ($) over bar B-s(0)).