Summit

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- President Bush left the Earth Summit yesterday firing parting shots at his many critics, saying that Americans are "the leaders, not the followers" on environmental issues and will be "pre-eminent" in carrying out accords signed here.Speaking at a news conference at his seafront hotel, Mr. Bush dismissed suggestions that his appearance here had not gone well.Mr. Bush, who agreed to sign only a watered-down version of the summit treaty to reduce the threat of global warming, proposed Friday that the nations gather on Jan. 1 to report specific plans to reduce emissions of pollutants that trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

In a recent column I said as forcefully as I know how that the NAACP has a right to invite anyone of any political stripe to a leadership conference without anyone assuming that the NAACP itself is endorsing any of the extreme opinions represented.I emphasized that I despise anyone or any group that wants to punish the NAACP or any other group for honoring constitutionally protected free speech. I did not deal with the question of whether the NAACP ''summit'' was fundamentally an exercise in futility.

President Clinton's "jobs summit" -- a Camp David gathering this fall of finance and labor ministers from the Group of Seven advanced industrial countries -- may provide some awkward moments for administration advocates of higher minimum wages, open-ended extension of jobless benefits and increased payroll taxes to pay for health care.All increase the cost of labor and discourage new hiring. On a scale much higher than that found in the United States, they have long been a feature of the European labor scene.

As George Bush and Boris N. Yeltsin begin their Washington summit today, it should be apparent that the former is expendable and the latter is not. Mr. Bush presides over a nation and a government defined by more than two centuries of history and quite capable of absorbing a change in leadership under normal or abnormal circumstances. Not so for the post-imperial Russia under Mr. Yeltsin's command. His country finds itself behind shrunken borders, its identity and destiny in doubt.Given this situation, Mr. Yeltsin's hold on his presidency is at once more tenuous and more important than Mr. Bush's.

COLLEGE PARK -- The sudden collapse of the Camp David summit has greatly increased the chance of violence in the Middle East, despite the significant progress on a number of difficult issues that have separated Israelis and Palestinians for a half-century. If a chance exists to salvage a peaceful accord before a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, American politicians -- especially presidential candidates, who have behaved responsibly during the summit -- must resist the temptation to blame one side or the other as they approach their national conventions.

President Bush will be first among equals when the Group of Seven summit convenes tomorrow, but he will be less first and more equal than ever before. His plight as leader of a somewhat diminished superpower cannot compare, of course, with Mikhail S. Gorbachev's problems as president of a collapsing Soviet Union. But the fact that Mr. Gorbachev has wangled an invitation to London in quest of Western assistance, and the U.S. is far less able to provide it than Germany and Japan, shows how the world power equation is changing.

The NAACP is expected to announce today that it will hold a national summit of black leaders -- probably including black separatist Louis Farrakhan -- in Baltimore next month.The Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., the Baltimore-based civil rights group's executive director, said yesterday that a "broad array of African-American leaders" would be invited to the 2 1/2 -day meeting on themes such as economics, education and violence.Dr. Chavis would not say whether Minister Farrakhan would be on the list of participants, but he did say that black leaders with national constituencies would be invited.

Wine and food experts, chefs, vintners, authors and celebrities will gather in New Orleans for a conference to support the rebirth of the city's culinary community. Participants in the event, sponsored by the Viking Range Corp., include Emeril Lagasse, Robert Parker, Cat Cora, John Besh, Susan Spicer and Julia Reed. The summit will be held in the French Quarter Feb. 9-12 and the weekend will feature wine-education seminars, tastings and intimate wine luncheons. A highlight will be the opportunity to dine in private Garden District homes with cuisine prepared by the city's finest restaurants.

Hundreds of Baltimoreans cheered and challenged the nation's black leaders last night during an NAACP-sponsored "town hall meeting" at Dunbar High School.It was the first chance during the three-day National African-American Leadership Summit for the leaders -- the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., Minister Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Rep. Kweisi Mfume among others -- to exchange views directly with the people of Baltimore.Minister Farrakhan, leader of the black separatist Nation of Islam, received the largest ovations from the 1,000 people who packed the Dunbar school theater in East Baltimore.

NAPLES, Italy -- For Bill Clinton, the timing could hardly have been worse.As the president's 747 jet was touching down in Naples for this weekend's sultry summit of the world's richest nations, someone changed his carefully planned script.That was Guillermo Endara, the president of Panama. Despite owing his job to the U.S. invasion of his country in 1989, he decided to back away from a 2-day-old deal with Mr. Clinton to house Haitian refugees in Panama.Along with continuing weakness of the dollar, which reached lows yesterday, the latest setback to Mr. Clinton's troubled Haiti policy threatens to undermine his effort here to raise his stature as a global leader during the annual summit of the seven wealthiest democracies and Russia.