{"id":34499,"date":"2017-05-11T17:05:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T17:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zimbabwe-s-robert-mugabe-not-asleep-just-resting\/"},"modified":"2017-05-11T17:05:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T17:05:21","slug":"zimbabwe-s-robert-mugabe-not-asleep-just-resting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zimbabwe-s-robert-mugabe-not-asleep-just-resting\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe&#8217;s Robert Mugabe &#8216;not asleep just resting his eyes&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Zimbabwe&#8217;s President Robert Mugabe is not asleep when he closes his eyes for long periods during meetings but is resting his eyes, his spokesman says.}<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president cannot suffer bright lights,&#8221; George Charamba was quoted as saying by the state-run Herald newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Mugabe, 93, has been seen apparently sleeping at several events, leading to speculation about his fitness.<\/p>\n<p>He intends to stand in presidential elections next year.<\/p>\n<p>The president is currently receiving specialised medical treatment for his eyes in Singapore.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Mugabe most recently appeared to fall asleep during a discussion panel about &#8220;fragile states&#8221; at a World Economic Forum meeting in South Africa earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>There he stated that Zimbabwe was &#8216;one of the most developed countries in Africa&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel like a failure when there is this reading that the president is sleeping in conferences &#8211; no,&#8221; Mr Charamba said.<\/p>\n<p>He then compared Mr Mugabe to the anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, whose eyes were affected by years of working in a limestone quarry while imprisoned on Robben Island.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You were not allowed to even use flashes whenever he was in the room,&#8221; Mr Charamba said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-19954 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_96011979_mugabe2.jpg\" alt=\"Robert Mugabe&#039;s eyes are sensitive to bright lights, his spokesman said\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Zimbabwe&#8217;s President Robert Mugabe is not asleep when he closes his eyes for long periods during meetings but is resting his eyes, his spokesman says.} &#8220;The president cannot suffer bright lights,&#8221; George Charamba was quoted as saying by the state-run Herald newspaper. Mr Mugabe, 93, has been seen apparently sleeping at several events, leading to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34499"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34499"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}