President Obama met with Chinese President Hu Jintao today and “agreed to expand our cooperation on climate change, energy and [the] environment” among other issues, Hu told members of the press after their meeting.

“As the two largest consumers and producers of energy, there can be no solution to this challenge without the efforts of both China and the United States,” President Obama said. The leaders agreed to launch a joint U.S.-China clean energy research center, take actions to mitigate the impacts of climate change and to abide by any agreements that are reached at next month’s COP-15 conference in Copenhagen, a meeting of the conference of the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC.)

The economy was also high on the leaders’ agenda. Hu said the two countries will continue to increase dialogue on financial policies and trade disagreements. They both spoke of the importance of the G20 as a body that can advance reforms of the international financial system.

“China’s partnership has proved critical in our effort to pull ourselves out of the worst recession in generations,” Obama said.

In the early morning hours today as most Americans slept, President Obama made an unannounced visit to Dover Air Force base in Delaware to pay respects to the families of 18 Americans who died in Afghanistan earlier this week. Dover base is typically the first point of entry for bodies of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the New York Times, Obama had a private discussion with family members and saluted as the bodies were transferred. Very little information about the event was made public.

By the way, an image like the one used in this blog entry is still pretty rare. Earlier this year the Pentagon ended an 18-year ban on media covering the return of Americans killed in war. Today these returns can be photographed with the permission of the victim’s family.

President Obama said he welcomes the news that Afghanistan will hold a run-off presidential election between current President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah after neither managed to win at least 50.1 percent of the August 20 vote.

“I congratulate the Afghan people on the patience and resilience they have shown throughout this long election process,” Obama said. The second election will be held November 7.

For more information, see “Obama Lauds Afghan President’s Participation in Runoff Vote.”

A group of elementary school students eating lunch welcomed a surprise guest to their cafeteria – President Obama. The president stopped by October 19 to congratulate the students on their reading skills and test scores.

“I wanted to come by and introduce myself, to say I’m very proud of you,” the president said. “I am hoping that you guys will continue to read, read, read, and that all of you are going to be really working hard not just this year but all the way through high school and then all the way through college.”

“This is not how I expected to wake up this morning,” the president said, after hearing that the Norwegian Nobel Committee had awarded him with the prestigious Nobel Prize for Peace. “I am both surprised and deeply humbled,” he said, and “do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace,” he said.

There have been detractors in the United States and overseas for the Nobel Committee’s decision. After only nine months in office, the president’s vision of eliminating nuclear weapons and his renewed emphasis on global cooperation and dialogue to resolve challenges such as climate change and pandemic disease have not yet accomplished their goals. Obama himself said today that some of his policy goals may not be completed during his administration, and the elimination of nuclear weapons “may not be completed in my lifetime.”

But when Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland announced the decision in Oslo, he compared President Obama to other peace prize winners such as former West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose own reform efforts had not been achieved when they received the prize.

“The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world,” Jagland said. “And who has done more than Barack Obama?”

The president said the prize has been used to “give momentum” to causes, and he said he sees the award, which will be given in Oslo December 10, as “a call to action” for the United States and all nations to “confront the common challenges of the 21st century.”

What do you think about this surprise announcement? Do you think this will help or inadvertently hurt President Obama as he tries to advance his policy goals?

A year ago today, the investment banking firm Lehman Brothers collapsed, contributing to what many say was the beginning of the U.S. financial crisis. Speaking on New York’s Wall Street – commonly referred to as America’s financial capital - President Obama said while there have been economic improvements over the past year, “the work of recovery continues.”

The president called on Wall Street to support new regulations that would protect consumers and hold financial firms more accountable so that future financial crises could be avoided.

“While there continues to be a need for government involvement to stabilize the financial system, that necessity is waning,” Obama said. “But here’s what I want to emphasize today: Normalcy cannot lead to complacency.”

An interesting side note – President Obama gave his speech at Federal Hall – the same place where America’s first president, George Washington, was inaugurated. A transcript of the president’s speech is available on the White House Web site.