Kim Jong Un's Wife Has Reportedly Had a Baby

Gave birth late last year, but it's all hush-hush

There's a new Kim in town.

South Korea ended months of speculation by verifying that the wife of North Korea's dynastic dictator Kim Jong Un secretly gave birth late last year. The newborn, whose gender is not known, could become the fourth-generation to lead the communist dictatorship, but Pyongyang watchers believe the baby is most likely a girl.

"If it was a boy, [the North Koreans] would have made an announcement," Michael Madden, editor of the online newsletter North Korea Leadership Watch, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Kim's wife, Ri Sol-ju, was rumored to be pregnant after official photos showed what intelligence analysts said appeared to be a baby bump. She is widely seen as a rising force in the Pyongyang leadership hierarchy and believed to have a strong influence on her husband, who inherited the reins when his father, Kim Jong Il, died in late 2011 after a 17-year run.