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Haiti’s devastated by the collapse of a school; a South African legend passes; and Beyoncé hits the stage of the World Music Awards. See pics.

Another school falls down in Haiti. Days after a school collapsed in the nation, killing more than 90 people, another school, this time in Haiti’s capital, collapsed Wednesday, reports CNN. The minor collapse affected only a portion of the building and injured nine children. The students are from the Grace Divine and Secondary School in Port-au-Prince, and lives were lost in the collapse, according to Haiti’s head of operations for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Children who were jumping and dancing during a musical caused the collapse, she said. But this building, like the school building that collapsed last week, suffered from faulty construction, says a local journalist. “This is the same kind of problem of construction as in the school last week. It’s weak construction. It’s not solid,” said Clarens Renois. The scale of damage in this latest collapse doesn’t come close to Friday’s tragedy. Haitian President Rene Preval has called for an investigation into last week’s collapse that killed 93 people and injured 150.

Sudan’s government announces ceasefire in Darfur. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has announced a ceasefire in the Darfur region, the BBC reports. “I hereby announce our immediate unconditional ceasefire between the armed forces and the warring factions, provided that an effective monitoring mechanism is put into action and observed by all involved parties,” he said. He made the announcement after he got the final recommendations of the Sudan People’s Initiative (SPI). But members of a prominent rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said they wouldn’t agree to the ceasefire, Reuters reported. A Sudanese official, Jalal al-Dugair, said the government will create contracts with the rebel groups to encourage them to abide by the ceasefire agreement. Bashir has been criticized worldwide for not doing enough to stop violence against Black Africans in the region, and he’s even wanted by an international court for allegedly facilitating war crimes in the nation. The government hopes that the call for ceasefire will take some of the pressure off of him and show the court, as well as the world, that he is doing something to stop war crimes, reports the news service.  However, declared ceasefires, in the past, have not gone according to plan. Although, this agreement, according to a government official, addresses all rebel concerns and will be aided by the United Nations. About 300,000 people have died since the violence, between ethnic rebels and militias suspected to be linked to the government, started in 2003. Another 2.5 million people have been made homeless.

Mortgage giants propose a rescue plan. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance giants now controlled by the U.S. government, said Tuesday that they planned a broad new effort to reduce the loan burdens of homeowners facing foreclosure. The program will be offered to people who are at least 90 days behind on their payments and already have paid for the bulk of their mortgage, according to government officials. The plan is to change the mortgage by reducing the interest rate so that the monthly loan payment is no higher than 38 percent of the borrower’s monthly income. The government plan could help as many as 300,000 families that are delinquent in their mortgage payments at taxpayer expense, reports The Washington Post. But people with knowledge of the details said Tuesday that it was more limited than a program advocated by Sheila Bair, chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The plan may apply only to so-called conforming mortgages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have guaranteed. While there are trillions of dollars worth of those loans, they are far less than, and generally separate from, the bulk of subprime loans that are at the heart of the nation’s foreclosure crisis. The foreclosure rate on loans owned by Fannie Mae is about 1.72 percent. By contrast, the foreclosure rate on adjustable-rate subprime loans is nearly 20 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Caribbean nations need to do more to fight HIV/AIDS, says official.

Countries across the Caribbean need to boost their HIV/AIDS care, treatment, education and prevention programs, says a United Nations official. Speaking recently in front of the United States Chiefs of Mission Conference of HIV/AIDS, Karen Sealy, head of the UNAIDS Caribbean office said that 38 people in the region die every day due to AIDS-related causes, reports the Caribbean Media Corporation.  There are 55 new cases of HIV in the Caribbean daily, she said, and prostitutes, along with men who have sexual relations with other men, are among the high-risk groups. Drug users are also contracting HIV/AIDS in higher numbers. “We know that the spread of HIV in the Caribbean is in fact being fueled by serious gaps in gender equality. …All the countries of the Americas which have homosexuality as a crime are now located in the Caribbean region,” Sealy said. Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning touted his nation’s work to reduce spread HIV/AIDS, including providing free antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women at government clinics, but admitted more needs to be done. The Caribbean region is behind only sub-Saharan Africa in its HIV/AIDS rate, reports the Caribbean Media Corporation. About 230,000 people in the region are living with HIV/AIDS and 14,000 people died from AIDS last year, according to Kaiser.
 
Somalia’s government and militia will observe ceasefire.
There might soon be some relief in Somalia. The government and the one of the nation’s main opposition groups have agreed to abide by a ceasefire that actually was negotiated back in June during U.N.-sponsored talks. The ceasefire will be implemented as troops from Ethiopia, who’ve been in Somalia trying to stabilize the nation’s interim government, start withdrawing troops next month, reports the BBC. The government and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia will come together to create a unified government, they say. As a part of the agreement, when Ethiopian troops (a popular target for rebel attacks) leave they will be replaced by African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi at first, then eventually a joint “police force,” reports the BBC. But the other militias who are also fighting the government are not included in the agreement at all. Some diplomats say Somalia’s problems will not totally improve until they are included.

Did the government snoop on our phone calls? The Senate Intelligence Committee is looking into charges by two former U.S. military linguists that the super-secret National Security Agency routinely eavesdropped on the private and intimated phone calls of overseas American military officers, journalists and aid workers. NSA interceptors purportedly shared some intercepts of highly personal conversations, including “phone sex,” reports The Associated Press.  Get the rest of the story here.

Chicago officials says renter evictions are unfair.  The Cook County sheriff said Wednesday that he has ordered his deputies to stop evicting renters from foreclosed properties because many people his office has helped remove had done nothing wrong. “We will no longer be a party to something that’s so unjust,” a visibly angry Sheriff Thomas Dart said at a news conference Thursday. “We have to be sure that when we are doing this – and we are destroying some people’s lives – we better be darned sure we’re talking about the right people,” he said. Dart apparently is the first sheriff in a major metropolitan area to stop participating in foreclosure evictions, according to the publisher of a national foreclosure database, reports The Associated Press. “I haven’t heard of any other sheriff unilaterally deciding to stop” evicting tenants from foreclosures, said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of Irvine-based RealtyTrac.  He said that Philadelphia’s sheriff helped push for a moratorium on foreclosure sales, but that it involved owner-occupied homes, not renters, the AP says. Dart said that from now on, banks would have to present his office with a court affidavit proving that the home’s occupant is either the owner or has been properly notified of the foreclosure proceedings. Illinois law requires that renters be told that their residence is in foreclosure and that they will be evicted in 120 days, but Dart says that the law has been routinely ignored. Some tenants dutifully pay their rent, Dart said, then leave for work one morning only to return to find their belongings at the curb – what’s left of them, that is. By the time they get home, “The meager possessions they have are gone,” Dart said. “This is happening too often.”
Black attitudes about money has changed. Young, affluent Blacks are more worried about holding on to wealth than older folks, according to “Wealth in Black America,” Northern Trust’s first annual survey of affluent Black households in the United States. Three in four Generations X & Y wealthy respondents (ages 18-42) said they are concerned about preserving their wealth, while less than half of respondents in the Boomer and Silent Generations (ages 43 and above) shared this concern. “In this first survey, we found that the younger respondents are generally more concerned about what will happen to their wealth,” said Shundrawn Thomas, Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Strategy for Northern Trust. “Many individuals at this phase of their life are in the ’sandwich generation’ – they are simultaneously caring for children as well as aging parents. Trends such as rapidly rising health care and education costs in concert with longer life spans exacerbate their concerns, says the report issued Wednesday. They want to ensure that their wealth can provide for family needs.” Generations X & Y respondents are also more worried about how their wealth will impact their children and future generations. Approximately 80 percent said they are concerned with ensuring the next generation of family members will lead productive, meaningful lives amidst affluence, and that they will pass on family values. In contrast, less than half (47 percent) of Boomer and Silent Generations respondents are concerned about how their heirs will use their affluence and 37 percent worry about upholding values. “There is a common concern among wealthy families that if their children grow up with a certain level of privilege, they may not learn the responsibility that comes with affluence,” said Thomas. “Most wealthy individuals have created their wealth in their own lifetime, contrary to popular belief. This is particularly true of wealthy Black Americans, with younger generations especially interested in teaching their children about fiscal responsibility and the importance of giving at a young age.”