Heads of state, heads of government and other members of the ruling elite have to be alert - always, because they are on watch all the time. Not only are their policies and public stand scrutinised but their personal lives are also never away from public glare.
And some of the famous men who have been formulating laws and executing them are at times caught napping in public. Are they sleep-deprived or are they stressed out, or do they just take a short power nap ahead of a busy day. Or it could be that the leaders have been missing on their forty winks as they flit across different cities. Whatever the case, the camera has never missed catching them sleeping or yawning.
Here are images of former British prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair and other top officials who were caught yawning or dozing off in public:
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown yawns inside the Security Council Chambers during a high-level meeting on peace and security in Africa at the UN headquarters in New York April 16, 2008.ReutersBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair yawns before a meeting in Heiligendamm June 7, 2007. Leaders from the world's major industrialised nations meet in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6-8 for a Group of Eight (G8) summit.ReutersZimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe attends the plenary session at the Africa-South America Summit in Margarita Island September 26, 2009.ReutersSalafi members of parliament are seen during the first Egyptian parliament session, after a revolution ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, in Cairo January 23, 2012. Egypt's parliament opened on Monday for the first time since a historic free election put Islamists in the driving seat after years of repression under Mubarak.ReutersA military band member falls asleep while China's Premier Wen Jiabao gives a government work report during the opening ceremony of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing March 5, 2009.ReutersIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yawns during a session of the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem October 20, 2004.ReutersGovernor of the People's Bank of China Zhou Xiaochuan yawns during the annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank Group held in Shanghai May 16, 2007.ReutersFormer Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid (R) yawns next to Hasyim Muzadi, chief of the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's leading Islamic organisation, during a prayer gathering in Surabaya on March 9, 2003. Up to 800,000 people gathered in Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya on Sunday to pray for peace in the biggest anti-Iraq war event yet in the world's most populous Muslim nation.ReutersIsrael's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) yawns as he sits next to acting president Dalia Itzik during a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem April 16, 2007. Israel on Monday marked the annual memorial day commemorating the six million Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust during World War Two.Reuters
