ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe has returned from his annual month-long holiday and was back to work Saturday, state media said, following rumours that he had collapsed and died in Asia.

Mugabe, who turns 92 next month, met Equatorial Guinea’s President Theodore Obiang Nguema for over three hours on Saturday in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, state-run newspaper The Herald said.

“President Mugabe and the First Lady Grace Mugabe arrived home on Friday night, quashing false media reports that (he) had suffered a heart attack while on his annual leave in the Far East,” The Herald said.

Harare last week denied rumours that Mugabe, the world’s oldest national leader who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, had collapsed and died while on holiday, according to AFP report.

Despite his age, Mugabe continues to give long speeches in public, but speculation over his health grew last year when he tripped and fell down some steps at a televised ceremony.