Once it was a pirate-filled ‘island behind the dead’ – now it looks set to host the Kim-Trump summit

Of all Singapore’s big hotels, only one shows all its rooms and restaurants are blocked out for the week surrounding June 12, when US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are due to meet in the city.

The booking crunch at the Capella, which sits in the middle of 30 acres of gardens and rainforest on the resort island of Sentosa, just south of the city, is among a handful of overt signs that Singapore is preparing for one of the most controversial summits since the end of the cold war.

Kim Chang-son, director of North Korea’s state affairs commission secretariat, and Joe Hagin, a deputy White House chief of staff, met at the hotel after arriving in the city state in late May to work out security and logistics measures.

Reporters are banned from entering the building, whose 112 rooms and villas were designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster.

A curving wood and glass structure wraps around restored colonial buildings that once included an officers’ mess for Britain’s Royal Artillery. The regimental silver is rumoured to have been buried under the lawn before Japanese troops captured Singapore in 1942.

Back in the city, those reporters are beginning to pour in. Hundreds have already arrived and more than 5,000 have applied for registration with the Singapore government.

Trump’s on-again, off-again approach (the latest is the summit is on) is a logistical headache, even for a small island with established security, well-trained soldiers and police, and a history of hosting leaders in sometimes tricky circumstances.

There are questions on where each leader will stay, whether the summit is in a different location, how to manage the media hordes and keep curious locals at bay.