US trying to find discreet way to pay for Kim's Singapore hotel
Washington, June 3: As preparations are underway for the historic US-North Korea summit, American officials are trying to solve the logistical issue of who will pay for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's housing at an island resort off the coast of Singapore, a report said.
With its economy weakened from tough sanctions, North Korea is requiring that a foreign country foot the bill at its preferred lodging: the Fullerton, a neoclassical hotel near the mouth of the Singapore River, where just one presidential suite costs more than $6,000 per night, The Washington Post reported.
The diplomatically fraught billing issue is just one of numerous logistical concerns being hammered out between two teams led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Kim's de facto chief of staff, Kim Chang-son, as they strive toward the June 12 meeting.
After weeks of uncertainty, President Donald Trump called off the summit last week, blaming "open hostility" from North Korea.
But a flurry of diplomacy across two continents got the meeting back on track, and Trump announced on Friday that he would attend as initially planned.
"When it comes to paying for lodging at North Korea's preferred five-star luxury hotel, the US is open to covering the costs," informed sources told The Post.
"But it's mindful that Pyongyang may view a US payment as insulting."
As a result, US planners are considering asking Singapore, the host country, to pay for the North Korean delegation's bill.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Saturday did not rule out the possibility that the US would arrange for Singapore's government to pay for the North Korean delegation's accommodations, but said Washington "is not paying the costs of accommodations in Singapore for the North Korean delegation".
During the PyeongChang Olympics earlier this year, South Korea set aside $2.6 million to cover travel accommodations for a North Korean cheering squad, an art troupe and other members of the visiting delegation.
At the same Games, the International Olympic Committee paid for 22 North Korean athletes to travel to the event.
In 2014, when former US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. visited North Korea to retrieve two prisoners, his North Korean hosts served him an "elaborate 12-course Korean meal". The veteran intelligence official insisted that he pay for it.
Figuring out how to pay Pyongyang's hotel tab will not be the only unusual planning obstacle that comes with hosting an event with the isolated regime, the sources told The Washington Post.
The country's outdated and underused Soviet-era aircraft may require a landing in China because of concerns it won't make the 3,000-mile trip.
Alternatively, the North Koreans might travel in a plane provided by another country.
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Israel says rabbi who went missing in UAE was killed
Tel Aviv, Nov 24: Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE's state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan's disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan's disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action." He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai's busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan's wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
