Saturday, 9 November, 2002, 14:31 GMT

By Paul Wood BBC correspondent in Riyadh

The Saudi media has been full of Ramadan news - but it has also been discussing the crucial decisions made at the United Nations.

The first four items on the Saudi news broadcast I've just watched are about cables of congratulations for Ramadan sent to the royal family. The fifth, halfway down the bulletin, dealt with the UN Security Council decision on Iraq.

It may be too early to talk of a Saudi spring, but there is a new mood of freedom and Saudis are cautiously testing its limits

News in the kingdom is first and foremost about the comings and goings of the royal family, recounted in strict order of precedence:

King Fahd, custodian of the two holy shrines, received yesterday a telephone call from the prime minister of Lebanon.

His Royal Highness, Prince Abdullah Bin-Abd-al-Aziz, Crown Prince, First Deputy of the Ministerial Council and head of the National Guard, received a telephone call from his majesty the king of Morocco - and so on.

But the political climate in Saudi Arabia is changing, and actual censorship is being replaced by self-censorship.

A girl killed in March's school fire The deaths of 15 schoolgirls were blamed on the religious police The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post about the fire at the school in Mecca in which 15 girls died because the religious police allegedly stopped them from fleeing unveiled - a story of explosive sensitivity here.

But when the Saudi papers translated this piece, they cut several crucial sentences.

Absurdly, Prince Turki was moved to write a letter of protest to his own papers.

Among other things, he pointed out, the article had been about the government's more liberal attitude to the media.

The correspondence columns of the newspapers are beginning to reflect what people have been saying privately about previously unmentionable subjects, such as corruption.

It may be too early to talk of a Saudi spring, but there is a new mood of freedom and Saudis are cautiously testing its limits.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2002