Bill Clinton has attacked industrial espionage reportedly carried out by the NSA.

The former US president told Rio's Globo that "we shouldn't collect economic information under the pretext of security".

Clinton had been asked about a September Globo story, written by former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, that stated that the US had spied on the Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras.

Clinton was in Rio for a meeting of his Clinton Global Initiative, bringing together business leaders and politicians from throughout Latin America.