Brussels (Belgium), Mar. 11 : United States Vice President Joe Biden has claimed that at least 70 percent of Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan are mercenaries fighting only for money.

He said that these elements could be persuaded to lay down their arms.

Stepping up U. S. calls for outreach to "moderate" elements of the insurgency, The News and the Washington Times both quoted as saying that he was in favour of applying the same tactics used by American troops in Iraq's Anbar province.

Brussels - US Vice President Joe Biden was Tuesday holding talks in Brussels with the chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and with European ambassadors to NATO on how to step up the alliance's efforts in Afghanistan.

The talks come just five days after US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the NATO headquarters, suggesting the new US administration was keen to re-engage with its European allies as it struggles to defeat the Taliban insurgency.

Brussels - In a further sign of the new United States administration's desire to work with Europe, US Vice President Joe Biden is due to meet European Union and NATO officials in Brussels next week, officials said Wednesday.

Biden, who already met with several European leaders at a security conference in Munich in February, is expected to hold talks with EU officials and with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the alliance's headquarters on Tuesday.

Washington, Feb. 24 : Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, who is facing Securities and Exchange Commission accusations of committing an eight billion dollar fraud, is said to have links to a fund of hedge funds run by two members of Vice President Joe Biden''s family.

The 50 million dollar fund was jointly branded between the Bidens'' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund, reports Fox News.

Langley (Virginia, US), Feb. 20 : Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Thursday that the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies "gave Al Qaeda a powerful recruiting tool."

Munich, Feb. 8 : US Vice-President Joe Biden has termed Pakistan as an important ally of the United States in its `war on terror', and asked for a strengthening of ties between both countries in order to stabilise the region.

Washington will have to increase its cooperation with Pakistan as no strategy for Afghanistan can succeed without Islamabad, Biden said.