As the president of the United States prepared to receive his Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, Indonesia remembered "Little Barry" Obama with the presentation of a bronze statue of him as a 10-year-old boy.

The statue of a young Barack Obama, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, were erected in the Jakarta neighborhood where he used to play as a child.

The 100 million rupiah (10,600 dollar) statue, which was based on a picture of Obama taken during his childhood, depicted the future world leader wearing a large necklace with a butterfly perched on his outstretched hand.

Ron Mullers, chairman of the group Friends of Obama, which paid for the statue, said there was nothing important about the timing of the unveiling.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a sequence of measures to put American back to work and help companies hire people, which he said would lay the foundation for robust economic growth in the country.

These measures are part of the overall policy designed to not just make jobs in the short run but also shift America away from consumption-driven growth to a focus on enhancing the competitiveness of America's businesses, encouraging investment, and promoting exports, Obama said.

Obama also called for the removal of fees and an increase in guarantees for loans through the Small Business Administration, a measure that extends provisions in the Recovery Act through the end of 2010. In addition, he called for continued Treasury efforts to use the TARP to maintain small business lending.

Today was a great day in environmental news.

First, former Vice President Al Gore met with President Obama about climate change this afternoon in a personal meeting in the Oval Office. Gore is one of the most famous Americans and thought leaders in favor of U.S. action on climate change.

Second, today the greatly anticipated U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen got underway. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the White House was announced that President Obama would join the U.S. delegation to Copenhagen (last weekend, officials said the President would be in Copenhagen on December 18, instead of December 9). President Obama is expected to commit the United States to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

And third, today the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gas emissions, officially declaring that carbon and other greenhouse gases are harmful to the public’s health and welfare.

President Barack Obama on Thursday called on corporate America to help tackle the nation's highest unemployment in 26 years and dismissed skeptics who have doubt his efforts to boost employment.

"We cannot hang back and hope for the best when we've see the kinds of job wounded that we've seen over the last year," Obama told business and labor leaders invited to the White House to suggest how to lift employment creation.

"Despite the progress we've made, many businesses are still playful about hiring," he said, acknowledging that although the economy is growing again, the labor market is lagging behind.
Obama is hosting a jobs forum after US unemployment hit a 26-year high of 10.2% in October, sap his popularity and potentially shaping his political future.

Critics dismiss the effort as mainly a public relations exercise. Obama already has said he wants measures that will not add to the country's record budget deficit, efficiently ruling out significantly more public spending on top of a USD 787 billion stimulus package that he signed in February.

US President Barack Obama gave PM Manmohan Singh a sample of his Afghan strategy before he announces it on Wednesday morning. While the phone call was one of several that Obama made - he spoke to Hamid Karzai, Nicholas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Rudd and Hu Jintao - officials said India's satisfaction was derived from the high level of Obama's commitment to stay the course in Afghanistan despite growing clamor in the US for an early pullout.

The US president is set to announce an raise of around 35,000 troops in Afghanistan, putting an end to a tortuous exercise of a review of his Afghan strategy that has taken the better part of the past four months.

The Obama-Singh conversation had one more important component for India: India's own presence and activity in Afghanistan. The Indian takeaway here is that the Pakistan "line" which, in a few ways was reflected in the report prepared by the top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal, that Indian activities in Afghanistan could be counter-productive, was comprehensively discarded. Obama reportedly told the PM that Indian activities are not only appreciated but they should continue. India has committed almost $1.2 billion in civilian and infrastructure project in Afghanistan, in the teeth of repeated Pakistani complaints.

Barack Obama enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving at the White House, telephoning U.S. servicemen and women stationed around the world and spending time in the company of his family and friends.

Obama placed calls from the Oval Office to 10 U.S. servicemen and women - two each in the Army, Air Force, Navy, the Marines and the Coast Guard - stationed in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in the Persian Gulf.

The commander in chief, who spent the past several weeks conduct an intensive review of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, called to wish them Happy Thanksgiving and to let them know that he and first lady Michelle Obama are "truly thankful for their service and sacrifice on behalf of the nation," according to a statement Thursday from the White House.

The White House announced that President Obama will travel to Copenhagen on Dec. 9 to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in order to work with the international community to drive progress towards a comprehensive and operational Copenhagen accord. The White House also announced that President Obama is ready to put on the table a U.S. emissions reduction target in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.

President Obama’s commitment to American leadership on fresh energy and combating climate change, the White House also announced that a host of Cabinet secretaries and other top officials from across the Administration will travel to Copenhagen for the conference. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson are all planned to attend, along with Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, and Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner.