President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Updated from 5:16 a.m. EDT

OSLO, Norway (TheStreet) -- President Obama has been given the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, the third sitting U.S. president to win the award.

The five-member Nobel committee said Obama, just 10 months into his presidency, was awarded the prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples."

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reports.

Obama will take home a gold medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.43 million), according to reports.

-- Reported by Joseph Woelfel in New York .

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