Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has sworn in his cabinet, which will work with him during his third six-year term beginning Wednesday.

The widely broadcast swearing-in ceremony was held at the Rio Reina room of the Teresa Carreno Theater, Caracas' biggest cultural center, on Monday.

Chavez, who was reelected president of Venezuela on Dec. 3, 2006, reshuffled his cabinet, replacing 15 ministers and creating two new ministries.

The new cabinet does not have a minister of integration and exterior trade, whose duties will be transferred to the new vice-president Jorge Rodriguez.

Pedro Carreno and Nicolas Maduro, among others, have been appointed Venezuela's Interior and Justice Minister and Foreign Minister respectively.

Also on Monday, Chavez called on the nation's legislature, the National Assembly, to give him more power to rule the nation.

In the same speech, he also announced a plan to nationalize telephone company CAN TV and some foreign oil companies.

Under the plan, Chavez said he would ask the National Assembly to give him the power to create so-called revolutionary laws. Then, he was to reform the nation's constitution to formally commit the country to socialism, create a people's education program via the so-called Ethics and Lights program, and redesign the nation's government to grant more power to local governments.

He said these measures were aimed at nationalizing "everything that had been privatized."

Source: Xinhua