LATIN SUMMIT . . . CLINTON WAXES DOMESTIC

President Clinton -- while pitching most of his remarks to domestic politics -- kicked off the 34-nation Summit of the Americas in Miami with a pitch for Western-hemisphere nations to join a giant free-trade zone by 2005. "This is a magic moment -- let us seize it," Clinton told an assembly of summit organizers and U.S. and foreign business leaders, stressing that the "partnership for prosperity" would create jobs at home. U.S. trade officials admit that such a trade zone is most valuable in U.S. political terms for the moment, since draft language doesn't call for final international negotiations till 2005. Instead, many of the summiteers -- including the president -- focused on side issues such as Cuba's conspicuous absence. "We hope that the next time we have one of these summits, and the people of all the Western Hemisphere send their leaders here, a leader of a democratic Cuba will take its place at the table of nations," Clinton said in a swipe at Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the only Latin head of state who wasn't invited.