HARARE: Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe has flown to Singapore for a “routine medical check-up,” state media reported Tuesday.
“President Mugabe yesterday (Monday) left Zimbabwe for Singapore for his routine medical check-up,” The Herald newspaper reported.
“He is expected back in Zimbabwe at the weekend.”
The leader who has been in power since 1980 regularly travels to the city state for health check-ups and private holidays, and his last medical trip was in March.
The leader who now walks with difficulty and sometimes dozes off during meetings made his last public appearance at the World Economic Forum on Africa last week.
At the meeting in South Africa’s port city of Durban, he addressed delegates in a slurred tone while slumped in his seat.
His health has been the subject of increased speculation in recent years and authorities in March arrested two journalists over a report alleging that he was “in bad shape.”
In 2016, the government had to deny that he had died abroad during his annual vacation.
Mugabe has declined to name a successor and his ruling ZANU-PR party has been riven by factionalism for years.
Despite Mugabe’s advanced age, the party last year endorsed him as its candidate for the 2018 general elections.
Mugabe flies to Singapore for health check
Mugabe flies to Singapore for health check
Serbia, Sweden urge citizens to quit Iran as Trump mulls strike
- Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard noted on X her “strong appeal addressed to Swedish citizens who are in Iran to leave”
BELGRADE: Serbia and Sweden have urged their citizens in Iran to leave the country after US President Donald Trump threatened military action over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
The Balkan nation had already invited Serbian nationals in mid-January to leave Iran and not to travel there, as the country’s clerical authorities launched a bloody crackdown on a mass protest movement.
“Due to the deteriorating security situation, citizens of the Republic of Serbia are not recommended to travel to Iran in the coming period,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website published overnight Friday to Saturday.
“All those who are in Iran are recommended to leave the country as soon as possible.”
Separately, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard noted on X her “strong appeal addressed to Swedish citizens who are in Iran to leave.”
Iran said on Friday that it was hoping for a quick deal with the United States on Tehran’s nuclear program, long a source of discord between the two foes.
But Trump, after ordering a major naval build-up in the Middle East aimed at heaping pressure on Tehran, said on Friday that he was “considering” a limited military strike if the negotiations proved unfruitful.
