Fidel Castro's health 'improving'

Fidel Castro is “exceptionally well” and appears recovered from a health crisis that has kept him out of the public eye for more than three and a half years, Brazil’s president said, according to reports by his country’s news media.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spent more than an hour discussing “various topics” with his longtime friend, the 83-year-old Castro, who ceded power to his younger brother Raul – first temporarily, then permanently – after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006.