'The Most Popular Politician on Earth'
For nearly seven years, he's done a spectacular job as Brazil's president. But can Lula resist the temptation to throw it away?
He grew up so poor, he didn't find out what bread was until he was 7. That was Lula's age when he climbed onto a flatbed truck with his Brazilian dirt-farmer family and all their possessions and made the 1,900-mile journey from the country's northeastern dustbowl for a life in the slums of São Paulo. He dropped out of school in the fifth grade, shined shoes on the street, and went to work in a factory at 14, losing a finger to a lathe in an accident on the graveyard shift at an auto-parts plant. Eventually he rose through the rank and file to become an internationally respected union leader. A military junta ruled Brazil back then, and strikes were illegal, but he defied the generals and the bosses and practically shut down the continent's industrial powerhouse in the name of the steelworkers.
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