Leader Kim Jong Un hasn’t been seen for weeks. His sister might be in charge? Or the military? What’s going on?

For the last several weeks, the internet has been full of speculation about the fate of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

AP Photo/KRT / Via Associated Press

The last time he was filmed in public, at a commemoration ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of his grandfather and North Korea's first leader, Kim Il Sung, Kim was walking with a slight limp. After weeks of silence, the North Korean media finally acknowledged in an official documentary that Kim was experiencing "discomfort." Now he hasn't been seen at all since attending a concert on Sept. 3.

Now North Korea has for the first time ever admitted that its infamous labor camps actually exist.

Jacky Chen / Reuters / Reuters

Speaking at a briefing for reporters at the United Nations on Tuesday, Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean foreign ministry official in charge of U.N. affairs and human rights issues, at first denied that prison camps — or even prisons at all — exist in North Korea. But he then did confirm that the country uses "reform through labor" camps.

"Both in law and practice, we do have reform through labor detention camps — no, detention centers — where people are improved through their mentality and look on their wrongdoings," Choe said. But the much harsher political prison system — thought to hold 120,000 people — went unacknowledged.

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