ar X iv : h ep - p h / 97 12 24 3 v 1 3 D ec 1 99 7 901 : Penguins , charmless B decays and the hunt for CP violation

By a multitude of very important observations involving the QCD penguin, CLEO [1] has declared 1997 to be the year of the Strong Penguin. The observed size of the various modes suggest that the penguin is rather robust. The experimental observations have fueled intense theoretical activity some of which we will briefly review here. For convenience, we have divided the theoretical activity into four categories (See Table 1): Exclusive modes, inclusive η modes, the charm deficit and implications for CP violation.