Summit

R&B singer and Baltimore native Mario will appear at Mondawmin Mall Wednesday at a teen summit. The event is open to young people citywide and attendees will have a chance to ask the star questions. Other "celebrities" appearing on the panel include: Ray Lucas, president of 100 Black Men Baltimore chapter Sonja, a former 92 Q disc jockey Keion Carpenter - a former NFL Atlanta Falcon who's from Baltimore              Tori Nelson - middleweight women's boxing champion  The release also lists mall General Manager Romaine Smallwood-Smoot as one of the attractions.

Since President Richard Nixon's visit to China in February 1972, American presidents have hoped that building personal rapport with Chinese leaders would strengthen bilateral ties and win political points at home. While Nixon's trip was a diplomatic triumph, later presidents have not been so successful. They usually discover that this type of Sino-American interaction has little impact on the relationship. President Barack Obama's recent effort to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping fits this pattern.

Baltimore City State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein hosted a summit Tuesday about witness intimidation where police, prosecutors and witness assistance providers could discuss the best ways to protect and support victims and witnesses of crime. "Violent retaliation against victims, witnesses, and informants threatens the very fabric of our criminal justice system and our communities," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings in a statement before the summit. Cummings was the event's keynote speaker.

Debora Coates-Consugar has a penchant for making math simple and enjoyable for students at Summit School, an Edgewater-based, not-for-profit education center for children with dyslexia and other learning problems. But sometimes the math department chair will encounter a struggling student who tells the teacher she can't possibly understand how frustrating certain subjects can be. Truth is, Coates-Consugar knows it all too well. "I'm dyslexic, too," says Coates-Consugar, fighting back emotions as she reflected upon once having endured the same struggles she now helps her students overcome.

MOSCOW - President Boris Yeltsin has invited President Clinton to a summit here in May, despite increasing U.S. criticsm of the campaign in Chechnya, the ITAR-Tass news agency said today.

The Johns Hopkins School of Education Neuro-Education Initiative will host its second annual summit and roundtable discussion on the practical applications of brain research on Wednesday at the American Visionary Art Museum. This year's topic, "Attention and Engagement in Learning," will explore current research on attention and student engagement. For more information or to register, go to http://www.education.jhu.edu/nei. liz.bowie@baltsun.com

I FOUND some comfort in Morley Safer's mistake the other night while introducing a "60 Minutes" segment: "President Clinton will host Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu this week during a summit in Washington."He was wrong, of course. Washington will not serve as a backdrop to the Middle East peace talks that begin tomorrow; that honor belongs to the Eastern Shore's Wye Plantation.Mr. Safer's writers (sorry Morley) evidently missed or ignored that detail, robbing the Eastern Shore of some rare diplomatic prestige.

President Bush should spurn pressures within his administration for a superpower summit unless a strategic arms reduction treaty is ready for signing. His motto should be: "No Treaty, No Summit."Richard Burt, who was Mr. Bush's chief arms control negotiator until last February, has warned that unless the United States and the Soviet Union complete a START treaty soon, "the opportunity for nuclear arms control may be lost for years to come." Why so? Because hardliners in the Soviet Union, taking advantage of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's weakness, are increasing their pressure to scuttle START.

Never have an American president and Japanese prime minister met on such weak terms. So yesterday President Clinton chose to see the trade relationship jar as half-full rather than half-empty and Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama promised that Japan would play its financial part in Washington's provision of non-weapons-grade nuclear reactors to North Korea. Mr. Clinton got a show of support for his North Korea policy while Mr. Murayama was seen to be a world leader.Last February, when Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa came to call on President Clinton, they argued over trade, agreed to disagree and had a "failed" summit that was a modest political success since they were seen to be tough with one another.

President Bush's failure to persuade Latin American and Caribbean leaders to approve a U.S.-backed free trade agreement during the recent Summit of the Americas is an indication of waning U.S. influence in Latin America after years of diplomatic neglect by his administration, and a reminder of why it is important to nurture ties in that region. The outcome of the two-day summit in Argentina, attended by 34 Western Hemisphere countries, was further signal of a growing willingness among those nations to assert political independence from the U.S. and express unease with U.S. assurances that the agreement will benefit the region.

- As Cal Ripken Jr. watched the news unfold of the sexual abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University, he decided to take on the chief question before the sporting community: "What can we do to make kids safer?" The Orioles Hall of Famer enlisted his foundation and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to draft guidelines using the research and input of leading sports scientists, pediatricians and advocates for screening coaches and volunteers.

He was a bearded, Bunyanesque defensive tackle whose rugged play helped the Baltimore Colts to three straight division championships in the 1970s. But Tuesday, when Joe Ehrmann addresses a national gathering convened to deal with the problem of child sexual abuse in sports, he'll take part in one of the most meaningful huddles of his life. His words will weigh heavily on the audience at the two-day Safe to Compete summit in Alexandria, Va., because Ehrmann - minister, motivational speaker and onetime Gilman coach - is himself a survivor of child sexual abuse.

Following a string of recent cases in which coaches used their positions to sexually abuse children, the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation says it is trying to help sports organizations better screen people who work with young athletes. The foundation has created an online resource that offers training for employees and volunteers. The site also directs sports organization leaders to a legal research website where they can search potential staff members' criminal histories at a minimal cost.

Hosted by the BWI Business Partnership, economic development professionals from around the Baltimore-Washington corridor will gather for a Regional Economic Development Summit, Thursday, March 14 from 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the Hilton Baltimore BWI Airport, 1739 West Nursery Road, in Linthicum Heights. Dominick Murray, Acting Secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, will give opening remarks. Economist Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group, and Jeff Salkin, longtime host of "State Circle" for Maryland Public Television, will moderate two panel discussion, focusing on factors important to economic development.

Americans are 20 times more likely to be killed by guns than people living in other developed countries. Nine out of 10 children who die of gunshot wounds in wealthy nations lived in the United States. People under 40 are more likely to be killed by a bullet than by any single disease. These were among the findings presented by a national panel of gun policy experts Monday at the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The summit, organized after a gunman massacred 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school last month, will conclude Tuesday as scholars draft a list of recommendations for lawmakers to stanch gun violence.

Business leaders, elected officials and transportation advocates gathered in Annapolis Wednesday to push Gov. Martin O'Malley and the General Assembly to take action next year to raise vital revenue for the state's roads, bridges and transit systems - even in the face of public opposition. Participants in the Transportation Funding Summit packed a hearing room near the State House to brainstorm over strategies to persuade legislators to do what they refused to do earlier this year - increase taxes on gasoline to provide the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to sustain a transportation program that does more than just maintain what it already has. “This is the year,” said Prince George's County Executive Rushern L. Baker III. “If we don't get it done this year, we might not get it done for the next eight years.” Some summit participants believe the what the governor needs to do is make a more sustained, consistently hands-on push for a tax on gasoline than he did last year.

In the year since the leaders of North America, Western Europe and Japan last assembled in London, the disintegration and disappearance of the Soviet Union has become one of the great events in world history. Now, as they meet again in Munich, their response to this seismic shift in the global power structure looks steadily more feeble and more fractured. The glue that was the Soviet military threat, that stirred the free world to greatness, has been replaced by the centrifugal forces of nationalism, isolationism and protectionism.

World leaders gathered in Hokkaido, Japan, on Monday prompted raised eyebrows by indulging in a lavish eight-course, 18-dish meal at a Group of Eight summit where one of the main issues was expected to be hunger and the global food crisis. (African leaders who had taken part in talks during the day were not invited to the function.) Hours earlier, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had urged the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and called on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food.

For more than two decades, Chris Warner's business has taken him into a death zone 26,240 feet above sea level, where oxygen is thin, the weather is cruel and a single stumble can be fatal. A certified alpine guide, Warner has led nearly 200 international mountaineering expeditions. He is one of only nine U.S. climbers to reach the summits of Mount Everest and K2, the world's two highest peaks. Warner, 48, is the founder and owner of three Earth Treks climbing centers in Maryland, the co-author of two business books, and a teacher of leadership skills at universities and numerous corporations.