Venezuelan acting government, opposition delegation begin talks

Aug 6 - U.S.-backed negotiations between Venezuela's interim government and a faction of the opposition began on Thursday afternoon, the two sides said, after nearly a week of delays.The talks are aimed at remaking the country's political system ahead of eventual elections.• Jorge Rodriguez, brother of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, is leading the government delegation and posted photos to his X account of the negotiators gathered in Caracas. He is also head of the National Assembly and a longtime negotiator at previous talks with the U.S. and the opposition.• His counterpart Dinorah Figuera is the head of an opposition-dominated national assembly cohort elected in 2015 which is still recognized by the U.S. as the country's last democratically elected legislature.• "Today we launched the process that will chart the path toward democracy and the re-institutionalization of Venezuela," Figuera said in her own post on X.• The State Department also hailed the effort at starting negotiations.• To the chagrin of some Venezuela observers, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, the country's most popular opposition figure, is not participating in the talks.• Machado has said she will not stand in the way of progress at the negotiations. REUTERS