Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been in hospital with high blood pressure, causing him to cancel his trip to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.

Lula, 64, became ill after boarding a plane for Switzerland but has since been released.

Brazil’s Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles has now travelled to Davos to represent the president.

Mr Lula was due to become the first head of state to receive the World Economic Forum’s new Global Statesmanship Award.

The son of poor farmers, he worked as a shoe-shine boy in the Brazil before training as a metal worker and becoming a high official of the Workers Party in 1980.

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