Standard sources of particle production in heavy ion collisions

We describe particle production in the framework of an independent string m odel: the dual parton model. We show that an improved version of this model , containing a diquark breaking component, allows to describe the bulk of p article production and, in particular, baryon stopping and most of the obse rved enhancement of strange baryons. Only for very rare processes, such as Ohm or J/psi production, the model has to be supplemented with final state interaction (comovers interaction). Recent data on event-by-event fluctuati ons in p(T) are also described by the model. Predictions for RHIC and LHC a re presented and the effect of nuclear shadowing is discussed.