Saddam shuts down newspaper run by his son Uday

Saddam Hussein has ordered a month-long shutdown of the newspaper run by his eldest son, Uday, a move that appears to signal a new bout of trouble in Iraq's ruling family.

Iraqi officials said President Saddam had banned Mr Hussein's newspaper, Babel, for "violating the instructions of the Information Ministry".

In the absence of any further official explanation, there was speculation that the paper's criticism of pro-American Arab regimes may have prompted the decision, at a time when Iraq's relations with Arab states have been thawing.

Babel has recently attacked Jordan and Egypt, and published details on Sunday of a British newspaper report that President Saddam had sent an envoy to Libya to negotiate a "bolt hole" for family members in case of his military overthrow.

The intriguing move against Babel comes when Mr Hussein appeared to have prepared the ground for his father to agree to a new UN resolution calling for the Iraqi regime to disarm or face military force.

On the day of the vote by the Iraqi National Assembly to reject the UN terms, Mr Hussein, who is an MP, wrote an article to the parliament calling for the resolution to be accepted. The following day, on 13 November, the Iraqi leadership announced it would accept the resolution unconditionally.

Although he remains influential because of Babel, Mr Hussein, a playboy turned politician, lost a power struggle within the Hussein family over the past year when his younger brother Qusay was put in charge of the country's security apparatus. Mr Hussein owns the popular Shehab (Youth) television station and is chairman of Iraq's National Olympic Committee and the Iraqi journalists' union.