San Salvador - Eight presidents left the Iberian American Summit in San Salvador before it closed Friday, in a mass escape that made the gathering's last day lacklustre.

Between midday Thursday and early Friday, the leaders of Brazil, Nicaragua, Argentina, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and the Dominican Republic left the Salvadorian capital. The presidents of Venezuela, Cuba and Uruguay directly skipped the summit.

Havana - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with the ailing former Cuban president Fidel Castro, whom he said he found "very lucid and active."

Lula and the elderly Castro - who formally stepped down from the Cuban presidency in February to pursue his recovery for unspecified health problems - met for some two hours just before the end of the Brazilian's less-than-24-hour visit to Cuba.