Joe Biden calls Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff over surveillance row

The Brazilian government says US Vice-President Joe Biden has telephoned President Dilma Rousseff in an effort to ease tensions created by the disclosure that the United States collected data on billions of telephone and e-mail conversations in Latin America's biggest nation.

After the conversation on Friday night, Communications Minister Helena Chagas said that Biden called Rousseff to offer explanations and to "express his regret over the negative repercussions caused by the disclosures".

Chagas said Rousseff accepted Biden's invitation to send a delegation to Washington to receive "technical and political details" about the case, but the date and make-up of the delegation had not been decided. Rousseff told Biden she wants the US to "change its security policies and practices", Chagas said.

The newspaper O Globo reported this month that information released by the National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden showed Brazil is the top target in Latin America for the NSA's intelligence-gathering effort aimed at monitoring communications around the world.