Semi-hard QCD: Minijets and elastic scattering

Starting from the QCD calculation of the amplitude for semi-hard interactions we establish a quantitative correlation between the growth of the cross section for minijet production and the changes in the pp̄ elastic differential cross section between ISR and Spp̄S collider energies. The fact that the semi-hard amplitude is central plays an essential role. The predicted behaviour for σ_tot, σ_tot/σ_tot, ϱ and dσ/dt at higher energies is presented.