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Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday announced that he was replacing the country's top anti-drug official in a cabinet shakeup.
In a speech to the nation at the half-way point of his six year term in office, Calderon announced that he had accepted the resignation of Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.
Neither Calderon nor Medina Mora gave any reason for the change.
Calderon praised Medina Mora for his "professionalism" which he said was "crucial for the procurement of justice and to strike at organized crime."
However Calderon asked Eduardo Medina "to continue his contributions" as part of Mexico's diplomatic corps, on an assignment "that soon we will make public."
Calderon said he would nominate Arturo Chavez Chavez, the former prosecutor of the northern state of Chihuahua -- where Ciudad Juarez, the most violent city in Mexico is located -- for the job.
Medina Mora has been attorney general since December 2006, when Calderon took office. He was the country's point man in their bitter war with the drug cartels.
Since then more than 13,000 people have died in violence, despite a crackdown on the drug cartels that includes the deployment of more than 36,000 military personnel.
The president is also replacing the head of the state-run oil consortium Petroleos de Mexico (PEMEX), Jesus Reyes Heroles.
PEMEX is the largest business operation in Mexico, but has been hurting in part due to lower production at Cantarel, its main oil field.
And Agriculture Secretary Alberto Cardenas is resigning, to be replaced by Francisco Javier Mayorga, who held the same job under president Vicente Fox, also from the president's conservative National Action Party (PAN), Calderon said.
