Lula's nuclear mission to Iran

Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, the Brazilian president, is famously known as a man who has spent his entire life overcoming difficulty. He rose up from a shoeshine boy with an alcoholic father who abandoned him as a young child to become president of what is now one of the world's great emerging powers. He spent much of his early life being told "you can't", and much of the second half of his life showing people with his actions, "yes, I can". Many aspects about Lula - and his diplomatic world-view - circle back to that storyline of his life. Including those of Saturday and Sunday in Tehran when he meets Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his Iranian counterpart, in what many are calling a last-ditch effort to broker a negotiated solution to the nuclear impasse before the UN takes up a vote on fresh sanctions. The international community is sceptical at best when it comes to Lula's efforts to forge an agreement when so many others have failed, and downright suspicious of his friendship with Ahmadinejad.