Calderon’s comments were taped prior to his statement Wednesday that reducing poverty is now “the first priority” for his administration. But in a previously-recorded interview with the news network Televisa, Calderon made it clear he wasn’t abandoning the war on drugs.

“Here the choice cannot be between combatting organized crime, as we are doing, or watching it take over Mexico, the way it was taking over Mexico before we acted,” Calderon said.

“The only alternative is to combat and destroy” organized crime, he said, “and we are going to destroy it.”

But Calderon acknowledged uneven results.

“There are zones of the country where we are clearly imposing the Mexican government’s law, like Tijuana, or Michoacan, for example ... there are other areas where that isn’t happening, like Ciudad Juarez, for example, where the criminal organizations continue fighting each other with unheard of brutality.”

Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico’s deadliest city. More than 2,200 people have been killed there this year in violence that authorities largely attribute to turf battles between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels.

When public safety chief Genaro Garcia Luna found out, he canned the team, all 50 to 60 members.

“He fired everybody,” a senior U.S. law enforcement official said.

But the episode shows how difficult it will be for Mexico to reverse a legacy of police corruption that has tainted whole departments, shattered people’s faith in law enforcement and compromised one of society’s most basic institutions.

The Bible-carrying hijacker used a juice can he said was a bomb to hold the 103 passengers and crew on the tarmac for more than an hour.

Masked police stormed the aircraft with guns drawn and escorted several handcuffed men away without firing a shot. Police later said there was only one hijacker, and the other men aboard were detained because the suspect had told a flight attendant he had three accomplices. The others were quickly released.

Jose Flores, 44, later told police his three companions were “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

Ebrard said the change meant the risk of contagion was low, the situation was under control and the images of countless people wearing blue surgical masks around the city could be consigned to history.

“There’s no longer any need” to wear masks, Ebrard said. “Now you can come to the city without any risk.”

With fears of an immediate global pandemic fading, Japan, where there have been almost 300 swine flu cases, also relaxed rules amid fears that the strict regulations could harm the economy and put needless restrictions on the public.