The Swazi monarch, King Mswati III has repealed a decree which many said gave him too much power.
There was widespread condemnation last month of a controversial royal decree under which the monarch gave himself the power to ban any book, magazine or newspaper.
A statement on the king's change of heart, issued by Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini said the king had listened to the concerns of the employers, trade unions, the general public and the diplomatic community.
Mr Dlamini said: "I am now informing the nation that his majesty has accepted their concerns".
Ridiculing the king
The decree had also prohibited anyone from impersonating or ridiculing the king and had prevented legal challenges to any of the monarch's executive decisions.
However, the prime minister has not clarified exactly which laws will go or stay or when the repeal will take effect.
He said: "I cannot single out any section of the decree that has been removed or will be retained. People will see for themselves."
A BBC correspondent in the capital Mbabane say that revoking the decree is not all it might seem to be. He says the king has retained the clause which exempts ministers from been challenged in court for their actions.
Subversion
It is however understood the clauses on chieftaincy dispute, subversion, sedition and impersonating the king would go. Leaving the decision to the courts rather than to the king's edict.
The Swazi media last week published a letter from the United States Government to the Swazi authorities criticising the decree.
It said that if it were not revoked the country would not benefit from the African Trade Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa).
Agoa provides African countries with preferential treatment to US trade, markets and technical assistance.
King Mswati has ruled as an absolute monarch since 1986. His father, King Sobhuza II, banned political parties and scrapped the constitution in 1973.
Last year Swaziland was affected by a series of strikes led by the Federation of Trade Unions in protest at the political situation in the country.
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Victoria was not amused over paying Jubilee bill (Electronic Telegraph)
By Michael Smith
QUEEN VICTORIA refused to pay the cost of her diamond jubilee in 1897, according to official correspondence released to the public record office at Kew yesterday.
Palace officials gave warning of a Royal boycott if the Treasury did not pay for the celebrations. Arthur Bigge, the Queen's private secretary, told the Treasury that "the Queen may abandon the whole celebration if she finds that the Privy Purse is likely to be called upon to again pay as in 1887".
During her Golden Jubilee, parliament had voted £70,000 to pay for the celebrations but they went over budget by £6,000 which the Queen had to pay herself.
Bigge said he could see "the objection to asking parliament to vote money for entertaining and as you say `bedding out' German Princelets", but the cost of the celebrations themselves should be paid for by the Treasury.
The row was defused briefly but it resurfaced two months later with the Lord Steward of the Queen's Household reiterating her concerns.
"There is no doubt that the Queen feels somewhat strongly that the heavy tax upon her private fortune made in 1887 should not be repeated this year," he said in a letter to the Treasury.
"The more so perhaps because her Majesty is not personally desirous of any festivities and they are going to take place solely because the nation evidently expects them. It would certainly be ungenerous to mulct the Queen for the cost".
Another palace official wrote to the Treasury to explain that the Queen did not have enough income to pay for repairs to Buckingham Palace.
He said: "Money has constantly been spent on this house, which has been in use nearly the whole of the Queen's Reign and now it is quite worn out and absolutely unsafe," .
Treasury officials consoled themselves with the thought that while the Golden Jubilee festivities had lasted 22 days, the Prince of Wales had cut the Diamond Jubilee celebrations to just 10 days so he could go to "an important Newmarket week".
But even before the celebrations began, the Treasury had begun to panic at the number of members of minor foreign royal families who were descending on Britain and having to be put up by the public purse.
No sooner were the Jubilee celebrations over but a senior palace officials was again writing to the Treasury reiterating her refusal to pay the £80,000 cost.
"The Queen has spoken so very strongly to me about what Her Majesty had to pay 10 years ago for the last Jubilee and everything has gone so well that I shall indeed be sorry if Her Majesty is annoyed by a disagreeable finale to her efforts to please her subjects and the world at large."
In the end, Parliament agreed to fund the celebrations but the Queen's reluctance to pay the cost herself had evidently leaked out. Bigge assured the Treasury that the Queen would be paying for a final private celebration that she had hosted.
"I should not have thought it necessary to mention this had not a remark been overheard from one of the guests which led me to suspect that some ill-natured minds were ready to think that the expense of entertaining them would not be defrayed by her."
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Queen Mother blooms at flower show (Electronic Telegraph)
NEITHER the sweltering heat nor her advancing years could stop Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother from keeping a date she has made every year since before the Second World War.
She delighted crowds by spending 100 minutes yesterday at the Sandringham Flower Show on the Royal Estate at Sandringham, Norfolk, touring the exhibits in her motorised buggy and calling in at a number of tents.
Visitors were amazed at how well the Queen Mother - who will be 101 on Aug 4 - looked and how comfortable she seemed. Dorothy Cornwell, 69, of Broughton, Cambs, said: "I thought she looked better than she did last year. She did marvellously well in this heat. It's very sticky. It's got me down today."
The Queen Mother was accompanied by the Prince of Wales and David Reeve, the chairman of the Sandringham Estate Cottage Horticultural Society Trust.
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Palace stubs out rumours of the smoker Prince (Electronic Telegraph)
By Peter Foster
PRINCE WILLIAM may have once tried a cigarette but - contrary to reports in the tabloid press - he is definitely not a smoker, St James's Palace said yesterday.
The Prince was said to have taken up the habit while socialising around the camp fire on his gap-year travels in Africa and Belize.
The denials marked a change of tack by the Palace, which earlier this week refused to comment on Prince William's alleged habit, saying it was a "personal matter".
Yesterday, however, St James's said it had been moved to issue a formal denial on behalf of the 19-year-old Prince to quash the "false" rumours, which it had initially hoped would die a natural death.
A spokesman said: "These stories are just plain wrong,. He is not a smoker and nor did he start smoking this year. He tried one a few years ago but hated it and has never done it again. He thinks it is a dreadful habit.
"The Prince is one of those people who starts to cough at the first hint of smoke. This story is made up and now seems to have taken on a life of its own. We have decided to put a stop to it. It is rubbish."
According to one report this week, Prince William first took up the habit two years ago and had now become a "hardened smoker" who showed "no intention of giving up".
Rumours that the Prince was experimenting with tobacco have been current among royal watchers for almost two years. However, he has always been given a strong family line on the dangers of drugs and tobacco.
The Prince of Wales is said to have been firmly against smoking since trying a cigarette at the age of 11. His companion, Camilla Parker Bowles, was recently reported to have given up.
The Queen is known to refer to cigarettes as "nasty things".