One day after Japan’s prime minister told a Parliamentary committee that his country’s national intelligence agency believed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to be hospitalized, a South Korean newspaper reported the same.

According to the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper, South Korean intelligence officials too believe that Kim suffered a massive stroke last summer and was hospitalized recently due to complications, or a “major setback.”

Since Kim is a highly authoritarian leader who has not appointed a successor, many fear that his death may cause tremendous choas in the impoverished yet nuclear North. At this moment, however, most intelligence seems to indicate that Kim is able to make decisions and to rule his country, albeit from the hospital instead of from his rather comfortable palace.