United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has named Latvian President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga as one of five envoys charged with promoting his reform agenda in the months before a summit set in September in New York.

Vīķe-Freiberga and the other envoys will promote the secretary-general’s agenda outlined in a report entitled In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All. The report makes recommendations for changing the U.N. with an eye to meeting a number of goals, including cutting world poverty in half over the next 10 years.

Joining Vīķe-Freiberga as envoys are Dermot Ahern, minister of foreign affairs of Ireland; Ali Alatas, former foreign minister of Indonesia;  Joaquin Chissano, former president of Mozambique, and Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico.

“As Latvia’s head of state, President Vīķe-Freiberga has actively supported the need for UN reform,” the U.N. said in a press release announcing her selection.

A two-week online auction offering airline tickets and hotel stays will aid development of Latvia’s first family shelter, the Wisconsin-based Kids First Fund has announced.

The eBay auction begins April 15 and ends April 28.

The fund has partnered with 11 airlines, three hotel chains and a recreational vehicle company to offer tickets and vacations in locations around the world, including South America, South Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and destinations throughout the United States and Canada.

Participating in the Great Online Auction for Kids are ATA, AirTran Airways, Independence Air, LAN Airlines, jetBlue Airways, Midwest Airlines, Song, South African Airways, Sun Country Airlines, Swiss International Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways. In addition, Hilton Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels and Xanterra Parks & Resorts have made accommodations at destinations throughout the United States available for auction, and Cruise America has provided a gift certificate valid at 15 motorhome rental locations in the United States and Canada.  

Airbus North America has donated a scale model of its new A380 aircraft, the largest commercial airliner ever designed. And eBay.com, the auction host, will donate its auction fees to the Kids First Fund.

Proceeds from the auction will go toward the USD 200,000 budget for a family shelter for abused children and their mothers in the Latgale region of eastern Latvia.

Last year, the Kids First Fund raised more than USD 30,000 through an online auction, Jay Sorensen, president of the fund’s board of directors, said in a press release.

The auction will be available at members.ebay.com/aboutme/kidsfirstfund.

Latvian President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga has expressed her condolences on the death of Pope John Paul II, noting the pontiff’s 1993 visit to Latvia and his role in opposing the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The Pope, born Karol Józef Wojtyła in 1920 in Krakow, Poland, died April 2 at the age of 84 in the Vatican City. He was elected pope in 1978.

John Paull II, the president said, leaves a deep impact on the history of Europe in his work pushing for and defending Christian values and people’s struggles for freedom.

The Pope, the president noted in a statement posted on her official Web site, installed the first two cardinals in Latvia’s history, Julians Vaivoids and Jānis Pujāts, and created two new Catholic dioceses in Jelgava and in the Aglona-Rēzekne region.

Vīķe-Freiberga’s last communication from the Pope came March 25, when the Vatican sent a response to the president’s letter regarding her decision to attend May 9 ceremonies in Moscow marking the end of World War II. The Pope’s response said the president’s letter had raised “deep contemplations,” according to a press release from the president’s press office.