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US

At least 29 killed in Mexico capture of Chapo’s son

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MEXICO CITY, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Nineteen suspected gang members and 10 military personnel were killed in a wave of violence surrounding the arrest of Mexican drug cartel boss Ovidio Guzman in the northern state of Sinaloa, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said on Friday.

Mexican security forces captured Guzman, the 32-year-old son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in the early hours of Thursday morning, prompting hours of unrest and shootouts with gang members, the minister said.

Guzman was extracted by helicopter from the house where he was caught and flown to Mexico City, before being taken to a maximum security federal prison, Sandoval added.

The arrest spurred the powerful Sinaloa Cartel – once headed by El Chapo himself – to go on a rampage, setting vehicles on fire, blocking roads, and fighting security forces in and around Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa.

Twenty-one other people were arrested during Thursday’s operations, Sandoval told a news conference, adding there were no reports of any civilian deaths.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said there were no immediate plans to extradite Ovidio to the United States, where his father is in a maximum security prison after being extradited in 2017 and found guilty in a New York court.

“The elements (of the case) have to be presented and the judges in Mexico decide,” the president said. “It is a process…It is not just the request.” No U.S forces had assisted in Ovidio’s capture, Lopez Obrador said.

An enhanced security presence will now remain in place in Sinaloa, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, to protect the public, with an additional 1,000 military personnel traveling to the region today, Sandoval said.

Passengers on an Aeromexico passenger flight at Culiacan airport crouched low below their seats as shots rung out around the runway on Thursday.

“As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that’s when we all threw ourselves to the floor,” passenger David Tellez said. Aeromexico said one of its plane was hit by gunfire at Culiacan but that no-one was hurt.

The airport was due to reopen later on Friday after being closed due to the violence.

In 2019, a failed operation to arrest Ovidio ended in humiliation for Lopez Obrador’s government. At the time, security forces briefly detained Ovidio, triggering a violent backlash from cartel loyalists and leading authorities to quickly release him to stave off the threat of further retribution from his henchmen.

His latest capture comes before a North American leaders’ summit in Mexico City next week, which U.S. President Joe Biden will attend. Cooperation over security is due to be on the agenda.

THE EXTRADITION QUESTION

The United States has sought Guzman’s extradition for years.

In 2021, the State Department announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Guzman, known by the nickname “The Mouse,” has been charged in the United States with conspiracy to traffic cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. The State Department said he oversaw methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa responsible for producing “3,000 to 5,000 pounds” of the drug per month.

The State Department also said information indicated he had ordered multiple murders, including that of a popular Mexican singer who had refused to perform at his wedding.

Surging flows of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States, where it has fueled record overdose deaths, have heightened pressure to capture Guzman.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers the Sinaloa Cartel, along with one other gang, to be responsible for most of the fentanyl inside the United Sates.

Additional reporting by Dave Graham
Editing by Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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US

Criminal justice postgrad charged with murdering 4 Idaho university students

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Dec 30 (Reuters) – A grad student seeking a criminal justice degree from Washington State University has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students more than six weeks ago, officials said on Friday.

Police in eastern Pennsylvania acting on a fugitive arrest warrant took Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, into custody on Thursday night, according to James Fry, chief of police in Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho campus is located. Fry said Kohberger resides in Pennsylvania.

Kohberger was arraigned in Pennsylvania and remained jailed without bond awaiting a hearing on Tuesday to determine whether he will waive extradition and return voluntarily to Idaho to face charges in the high-profile case, said Latah County, Idaho, prosecutor Bill Thompson.

Thompson said Kohberger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary in a crime that unnerved the small college town in Idaho’s northwest panhandle where the four victims – three women and a man in their early 20s – were slain.

The four were all found fatally stabbed on the morning of Nov. 13 inside the off-campus house where the three women lived, two of them staying in one room, and one sharing her room with the fourth victim, her boyfriend.

Two other female roommates in the house at the time were unharmed, apparently sleeping through the killings. Police said the cellphone of one of the survivors was used to call emergency-911 when the bodies were first discovered.

“This is not the end of this investigation. In fact it is a new beginning,” Thompson told a news conference.

The victims – identified as Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho – all suffered multiple stab wounds, Fry said. Some of the bodies also showed defensive wounds, Fry said, suggesting they had tried to fend off their attacker.

NIGHT OUT BEFORE KILLINGS

[1/5] The Sigma Chi fraternity house, where victim Ethan Chapin was a member, is pictured after four University of Idaho students were found killed in their residence on November 13 in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., November 30, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Chapin and his girlfriend, Kernodle, had attended a fraternity party the night before, while Mogen and Goncalves, who were best friends, had visited a local bar and food truck. Both pairs returned to the house shortly before 2 a.m. The two other roommates had gotten home about an hour earlier.

Authorities say they believe the slayings occurred between 3 and 4 a.m. on Nov. 13.

The victims appeared to have been killed with a knife or some other “edged” weapon, police have said. Fry said the murder weapon has not been recovered, though police had found a car they were searching for in connection with the killings.

Authorities said Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Washington, about 10 miles from the University of Idaho campus.

WSU issued a statement on Friday saying its police department and Idaho law enforcement officers searched both Kohberger’s apartment residence and his office on campus.

It said Kohberger “had completed his first semester as a PhD student in WSU’s criminal justice program earlier this month,” suggesting he had remained on campus, just miles away from the crime scene across the Idaho state line, for a number of weeks before returning to Pennsylvania.

Asked at the press conference in Moscow whether authorities there were seeking additional suspects, Fry said, “We have an individual in custody who committed these horrible crimes, and I do believe our community is safe.”

Fry said his department had received more than 19,000 tips from the public and had conducted more than 300 interviews as part of its investigation, assisted by state police and the FBI. He and Thompson urged anyone who knew anything about the accused killer to come forward.

He declined to offer a possible motive for the crime or to give any details about the investigation, such as how authorities traced Kohberger to Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, a small community in the Pocono Mountains resort region about 90 miles north of Philadelphia, where he was arrested.

Thompson said more details would emerge publicly from a probable-cause affidavit that summarizes the factual basis for the charges but remains under court seal until the suspect is physically back in Idaho to be served his arrest warrant.

Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Neil Fullick

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US

U.S. deep freeze forecast to break Christmas Eve records

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Dec 24 (Reuters) – An arctic blast gripped much of the United States on Saturday driving power outages, flight cancellations and car wrecks, as plummeting temperatures were predicted to bring the coldest Christmas Eve on record to several cities from Pennsylvania to Georgia.

Temperatures are forecast to top out on Saturday at just 7 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 13 Celsius) in Pittsburgh, surpassing its previous all-time coldest Christmas Eve high of 13 F, set in 1983, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

Cities in Georgia and South Carolina – Athens and Charleston – were likewise expected to record their coldest daytime Christmas Eve high temperatures, while Washington, D.C., was forecast to experience its chilliest Dec. 24 since 1989.

The flurry of yuletide temperature records were predicted as a U.S. deep freeze sharpened by perilous wind chills continued to envelope much of the eastern two-thirds of the nation into the holiday weekend.

The freeze already produced fatal car collisions around the country with CNN reporting at least 14 dead from weather-related accidents.

The arctic cold combined with a “cyclone bomb” of heavy snow and howling winds roaring out of the Great Lakes region on Friday and into the Upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys wreaked havoc on power systems, roadways and commercial air traffic.

Extreme winter weather was blamed for at least five deaths on Friday.

Two motorists were killed, and numerous others injured, in a 50-vehicle pileup that shut down the Ohio Turnpike in both directions during a blizzard near Toledo, forcing an evacuation of stranded motorists by bus to keep them from freezing in their cars, officials said.

Three more weather-related fatalities were confirmed in neighboring Kentucky – two from car accidents and one a homeless person who died of exposure.

Freezing rain and ice from a separate storm in the Pacific Northwest made travel treacherous there as well on Friday.

[1/7] A view of an area after heavy snowfall in Regent, North Dakota, U.S. December 23, 2022, in this picture obtained from social media. Blake Rafferty/Twitter@BlakeRafferty1/via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

BORDER TO BORDER

From the Canadian to the Mexican border and coast to coast, some 240 million people in all were under winter weather warnings and advisories of some sort on Friday, according to the weather service.

The NWS said its map of existing or impending meteorological hazards “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever.”

With energy systems across the country strained by rising demand for heat and storm-related damage to transmission lines, as many as 1.8 million U.S. homes and businesses were left without power as of early Saturday morning, according to tracking site Poweroutage.us.

The disruptions upended daily routines and holiday plans for millions of Americans during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

The American Automobile Association had estimated that 112.7 million people planned to venture 50 miles (80 km) or more from home between Friday and Jan. 2. But stormy weather heading into the weekend likely ended up keeping many of them at home.

At least 3,741 U.S. flights were canceled on Saturday, with total delays tallying 10,297, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. More than 5,000 flights were cancelled on Friday, the flight tracking said.

The city of Buffalo and its surrounding county on the edge of Lake Erie in western New York imposed a driving ban, and all three Buffalo-area border crossing bridges were closed to inbound traffic from Canada due to the weather.

The severe weather prompted authorities across the country to open warming centers in libraries and police stations while scrambling to expand temporary shelter for the homeless. The challenge was compounded by the influx of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border by the thousands in recent weeks.

Bitter cold intensified by high winds extended through the Deep South to the U.S.-Mexico border, plunging wind chill factors to single digits Fahrenheit (minus 18 to minus 13 Celsius) in El Paso, Texas. Exposure to such conditions can cause frostbite within minutes.

Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Joel Schectman, Gabriella Borter, Tim Reid, Lisa Baertlein, Erwin Seba, Susan Heavey, Laila Kearney, Alyson McClaren, Aleksandra Michalska, and Scott DiSavino; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Aurora Ellis, William Mallard and Diane Craft

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World

European Parliament kicks out VP Kaili over Qatar graft scandal

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  • Kaili was one of four people arrested in Belgium
  • Greek politician’s lawyer says she denies wrongdoing
  • Police uncovered cash in raids, some in suitcase in hotel
  • European Parliament’s role as bloc’s moral compass at risk

STRASBOURG, Dec 13 (Reuters) – The European Parliament removed Greek MEP Eva Kaili as a vice president of the assembly on Tuesday after she was accused of accepting bribes from Qatar in one of the biggest graft scandals to hit Brussels.

Kaili has denied any wrongdoing, but European lawmakers have moved rapidly to isolate her, worrying that the Belgian investigation will badly dent the assembly’s efforts to present itself as a sound moral compass in a troubled world.

“There will be no sweeping under the carpet. Our internal investigation will look at what has happened and how our systems can be made more watertight,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said as 625 MEPs voted to deprive Kaili of her VP role, with only one voting against and two abstaining.

Kaili, who is in police detention, was one of 14 vice presidents in the parliament.

Belgian prosecutors charged her and three Italians at the weekend of taking part in a criminal organisation, money laundering and corruption.

A source close to the investigation has said they are believed to have pocketed money from World Cup host Qatar. The Gulf state has denied any wrong doing.

Police have raided numerous buildings in Brussels, including parliament offices and 19 homes, discovering around 1.5 million euros ($1.58 million), some of it stashed in a suitcase in a hotel room, a source close to the investigation said.

Kaili’s lawyer in Greece, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said on Tuesday that she was innocent. “She has nothing to do with financing from Qatar, nothing, explicitly and unequivocally,” he told Open TV in a first public comment.

Several MEPs nonetheless called for the 44-year-old Socialist politician to quit the assembly altogether.

“Given the extent of the corruption scandal, it is the least we could expect of her,” said MEP Manon Aubry, who co-chairs the Left group.

Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, Qatar’s minister of labour, speaks with Greece’s Eva Kaili, vice president of the European Parliament, during a meeting in Qatar, October 31, 2022 in this social media handout image. Twitter/Ministry of Labour – State of Qatar via REUTERS

CORRUPTION

Countries which have faced criticism from the assembly said it had lost the moral high ground.

“From now on the European Parliament will not be able to speak about corruption in a credible manner,” Hungary Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on Facebook.

Belgian prosecutors said they had suspected for more than four months that a Gulf state was trying to buy influence in Brussels. Although no state was publicly named by prosecutors, a source with knowledge of the case said it was Qatar.

None of the four people charged have been formally identified, but their names were rapidly leaked to the press.

According to a source familiar with the case, the other accused are former EU lawmaker Pier Antonio Panzeri, Kaili’s partner Francesco Giorgi, who is a parliamentary assistant, and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, secretary-general of a human rights campaign group.

There were no replies to calls and emails made by Reuters to their respective offices or homes.

Kaili was among a stable of young aspiring Greek politicians who emerged in the debilitating debt crisis which swept Greece from 2010 to 2015. The Greek socialist PASOK party has said it will expel her from its ranks.

In a speech in the European Parliament on Nov. 21, at the start of the month-long World Cup, she lashed out at Qatar’s detractors and hailed the energy-rich Gulf state as “a frontrunner in labour rights.”

Qatar has faced fierce criticism of its human rights record in the run up to the World Cup, including its treatment of migrant workers.

Additional reporting by Phil Blenkinsop, Karolina Tagaris, Clement Rossignol, Max Schwarz, Lefteris Papadimas, Michele Kambas, Alan Charlish, Giselda Vagnoni; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Edmund Blair and Crispian Balmer

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World

Russia drones smash power network in Odesa, leaving 1.5 million without power

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KYIV, Dec 10 (Reuters) – All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday.

“The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity… It doesn’t take hours, but a few days, unfortunately.”

Since October, Moscow has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with large waves of missile and drone strikes.

Norway was sending $100 million to help restore Ukraine’s energy system, Zelenskiy said.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for Odesa’s regional administration, said electricity for the city’s population will be restored “in the coming days,” while complete restoration of the networks may take two to three months.

Bratchuk said an earlier Facebook post by the region’s administration, advising some people to consider evacuating, was being investigated by Ukraine’s security services as “an element of the hybrid war” by Russia.

That post has since been deleted.

“Not a single representative of the authorities in the region made any calls for the evacuation of the inhabitants of Odesa and the region,” Bratchuk said.

Odesa had more than 1 million residents before the Feb. 24 invasion that Russia calls a “special military operation” to “denazify” its smaller neighbour.

Kyiv says Russia has launched hundreds of Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones at targets in Ukraine, describing the attacks as war crimes due to their devastating effect on civilian life. Moscow says its attacks are militarily legitimate and that it does not target civilians.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said two power facilities in Odesa region were hit by Shahed-136 drones.

Ukraine’s armed forces said on Facebook that 15 drones had been launched against targets in the southern regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv, and 10 had been shot down.

Tehran denies supplying the drones to Moscow. Kyiv and its Western allies say that is a lie.

Britain’s defence ministry said on Saturday that it believed Iran’s military support for Russia was likely to increase in the coming months, including possible deliveries of ballistic missiles.

Reporting by Max Hunder and David Ljunggren; Editing by Ros Russell, Daniel Wallis and William Mallard

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World

Serbia to ask NATO to deploy Serb military, police in Kosovo

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BELGRADE, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Serbia will ask NATO peacekeepers to let it deploy Serbian military and police in Kosovo, although it believes there is no chance of the request being approved, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday.

Vucic told a news conference in Belgrade that he would make the request in a letter to the commander of the NATO force KFOR.

Vucic’s remarks came after a spate of incidents between Kosovo authorities and local Serbs who constitute a majority in northern areas of Albanian-majority Kosovo.

“We will request from the KFOR commander to ensure the deployment of army and police personnel of the Republic of Serbia to the territory of Kosovo and Metohija,” Vucic told a news conference in Belgrade. He said he had “no illusions” that the request would be accepted.

The government in Belgrade would formally adopt the document on Monday or Tuesday, he said.

It would be the first time Belgrade requested to deploy troops in Kosovo, under provisions of a U.N. Security Council resolution which ended a 1998-1999 war, in which NATO interceded against Serbia to protect Albanian-majority Kosovo.

The resolution says Serbia can deploy up to 1,000 military, police and customs officials to Orthodox Christian religious sites, areas with Serb majorities and border crossings, if such a deployment is approved by KFOR’s commander.

At the time it was agreed, Kosovo was internationally recognised as part of Serbia. With the West’s backing, Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a declaration not recognised by Serbia.

Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic
Editing by Peter Graff

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Business

Tesla cuts Dec Model Y output at Shanghai plant by more than 20% versus Nov – sources

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SHANGHAI, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O) plans to cut December output of the Model Y at its Shanghai plant by more than 20% from the previous month, two people with knowledge of electric vehicle (EV) giant’s production plan said on Monday.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned cut, first reported by Bloomberg, and Reuters was unable to immediately ascertain the reason for reduction.

Inventory levels at Tesla’s Shanghai plant rose sharply after it completed an upgrade of the manufacturing facilities in summer, with EV inventory increasing at its fastest pace ever in October.

The U.S. automaker has cut prices for Model 3 and Model Y cars by up to 9% in China and offered insurance incentives, which helped boost the November sales of its China-made cars by 40% from October and 89.7% more compared to a year ago.

Tesla delivered 100,291 China-made EVs in November, the highest monthly sales since its Shanghai factory opened in late 2020, Xinhua reported on Monday citing Tesla.

Tesla’s high inventory levels in Shanghai come as China’s auto market faces slowing demand and disruptions to local supply chains.

Uncertainty over when China will make significant move to relax its “dynamic zero-COVID” strategy have clouded the outlook for the world’s largest car market, though some Chinese cities have taken steps to ease some restrictions following protests in recent weeks.

Globally, Tesla had planned to push production of the Model Y and Model 3 EVs sharply higher in the fourth quarter as newer factories in Austin, Texas and Berlin ramp production, Reuters reported in September.

The company is planning to start production of a revamped version of Model 3 in the third quarter of 2023 in Shanghai, as it aims to cut production costs and boost the appeal of the five-year-old electric sedan. read more

Reporting by Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kim Coghill, Kenneth Maxwell and Simon Cameron-Moore

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World

More than 80 injured as Indian police clash with Adani port protesters

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KOCHI, India Nov 28 (Reuters) – More than 80 people were wounded in southern India as villagers halting the construction of a $900 million port clashed with police, the latest escalation of a months-old protest waged by a mostly Christian fishing community against Asia’s richest man.

The protests are a major headache for Gautam Adani’s $23 billion ports-and-logistics company which has been forced to stop work on the Vizhinjam seaport that is seen winning business from rivals in Dubai, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Construction, however, has been halted for more than three months after villagers blocked the entrance of the site, blaming the port of causing coastal erosion and depriving them of their livelihoods.

Over the weekend, police arrested several protesters after they blocked Adani’s construction vehicles from entering the port, despite a court order for work to resume.

The arrests prompted hundreds of protesters, led by Roman Catholic priests, to march on the police station, clash with personnel and damage vehicles there, according to police documents and footage on local television.

Senior local police official M R Ajith Kumar told Reuters 36 officers were wounded in the clashes. Joseph Johnson, one of the protest leaders, said at least 46 protesters were also hurt.

Located on the southern tip of India, the port seeks to plug into lucrative East-West trade routes, adding to the global reach of the business led by billionaire Adani, estimated by Forbes to be the world’s third richest man.

Asked about the latest protest, the Adani Group did not immediately comment. The company has said that the port complies with all laws and cited studies that show it is not linked to shoreline erosion. The state government has also said that any erosion was due to natural causes.

FACTBOX – Major industrial disputes in India read more

The protests have continued despite repeated orders by the Kerala state’s top court to allow construction to start. Police have largely been unwilling to take any action, fearful that doing so will set off social and religious tensions.

In the latest clashes, police documents said the protesters “came with lethal weapons and barged into the station and held the police hostage, threatening that if people in custody were not released they would set the station on fire.” Eugine H. Pereira, the vicar general of the archdiocese and a protest leader, said the police pelted the protesters with stones.

The port protests recall the backlash Adani faced in Australia over his Carmichael coal mine. There, activists concerned about carbon emissions and damage to the Great Barrier Reef forced Adani to downsize production targets and delayed the mine’s first coal shipment by six years.

Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Miral Fahmy

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World

Canada launches new Indo-Pacific strategy, focus on ‘disruptive’ China

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OTTAWA, Nov 27 (Reuters) – Canada launched its long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy on Sunday, vowing more resources to deal with a “disruptive” China while working with the world’s second-biggest economy on climate change and trade issues.

The 26-page document outlined C$2.3 billion ($1.7 billion) spending, including to boost Canada’s military presence and cyber security in the region and tighten foreign investment rules to protect intellectual property and prevent Chinese state-owned enterprises from snapping up critical mineral supplies.

The blueprint is to deepen ties with a fast-growing region of 40 countries accounting for almost C$50 trillion in economic activity. But the focus is on China, which is mentioned more than 50 times, at a moment when bilateral ties are frosty.

“China is an increasingly disruptive global power,” said the strategy. “China is looking to shape the international order into a more permissive environment for interests and values that increasingly depart from ours.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government wants to diversify trade and economic ties that are overwhelmingly reliant on the United States. Official data for September show bilateral trade with China accounted for under 7% of the total, compared to 68% for the United States.

The strategy highlighted Beijing’s “foreign interference and increasingly coercive treatment of other countries.

“Our approach … is shaped by a realistic and clear-eyed assessment of today’s China. In areas of profound disagreement, we will challenge China,” it said.

Tensions soared in late 2018 after Canadian police detained a Huawei Technologies executive and Beijing subsequently arrested two Canadians on spying charges. All three were released last year, but relations remain sour.

Earlier this month Canada ordered three Chinese companies to divest their investments in Canadian critical minerals, citing national security.

The document, in a section mentioning China, said Ottawa would review and update legislation enabling it to act “decisively when investments from state-owned enterprises and other foreign entities threaten our national security, including our critical minerals supply chains.”

The document recognized the significant opportunities for Canadian exporters and said co-operation with Beijing was necessary to address some of the “world’s existential pressures,” including climate change, global health and nuclear proliferation.

Goldy Hyder, CEO of the Business Council of Canada, said it is important that the government converts “aspirations to actions and actions into accomplishments.”

The document said Canada would boost its naval presence in the region and “increase our military engagement and intelligence capacity as a means of mitigating coercive behavior and threats to regional security.”

Canada belongs to the Group of Seven major industrialized nations, which wants significant measures in response to North Korean missile launches.

The document said Ottawa was engaging in the region with partners such as the United States and the European Union.

Canada needed to keep talking to nations it had fundamental disagreements with, it said, but did not name them.

($1 = 1.3377 Canadian dollars)

(This story has been corrected to fix the amount to C$2.3 billion from C$2.6 billion in the second paragraph.)

Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Denny Thomas, Leslie Adler and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

David Ljunggren

Thomson Reuters

Covers Canadian political, economic and general news as well as breaking news across North America, previously based in London and Moscow and a winner of Reuters’ Treasury scoop of the year.

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Business

Buffett’s Berkshire discloses $4.1 bln TSMC stake

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Nov 14 (Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) said it bought more than $4.1 billion of stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (2330.TW), , a rare significant foray into the technology sector by billionaire Warren Buffett’s conglomerate.

The news sent shares in TSMC up more than 6% in Taiwan on Tuesday, as it boosted investor sentiment for the world’s largest contract chipmaker, which saw its shares hit a two-year low last month due to a sharp slowdown in global chip demand.

In a Monday regulatory filing describing its U.S.-listed equity investments as of Sept. 30, Berkshire said it owned about 60.1 million American depositary shares of TSMC.

Berkshire also disclosed new stakes of $297 million in building materials company Louisiana-Pacific Corp (LPX.N) and $13 million in Jefferies Financial Group Inc (JEF.N). It exited an investment in Store Capital Corp (STOR.N), a real estate company that agreed in September to be taken private.

The filing did not specify whether Buffett or his portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler made specific purchases and sales. Investors often try to piggy back on what Berkshire buys. Larger investments are normally Buffett’s.

While Berkshire does not normally make big technology bets, it often prefers companies it perceives to have competitive advantages, often through their size.

TSMC, which makes chips for the likes of Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Qulacomm (QCOM.O) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), posted an 80% jump in quarterly profit last month, but struck a more cautious note than usual on upcoming demand.

“I suspect Berkshire has a belief that the world cannot do without the products manufactured by Taiwan Semi,” said Tom Russo, a partner at Gardner, Russo & Quinn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which owns Berkshire shares.

“Only a small number of companies that can amass the capital to deliver semiconductors, which are increasingly central to people’s lives,” he added.

Berkshire has had mixed success in technology.

Its more than six-year wager during the last decade in IBM Corp (IBM.N) did not pan out, but Berkshire is sitting on huge unrealized gains on its $126.5 billion stake in Apple, which Buffett views more as a consumer products company.

Apple is by far the largest investment in Berkshire’s $306.2 billion equity portfolio.

Berkshire disclosed the TSMC stake about 2-1/2 months after it began reducing a decade-old, multi-billion dollar stake in BYD Co (002594.SZ), China’s largest electric car company.

In the third quarter, Berkshire added to its stakes in Chevron Corp (CVX.N), Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N), Celanese Corp (CE.N), Paramount Global (PARA.O) and RH (RH.N).

It also sold shares of Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O), Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK.N), General Motors Co (GM.N), Kroger Co (KR.N) and US Bancorp (USB.N).

Buffett, 92, has run Berkshire since 1965. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company also owns dozens of businesses such as the BNSF railroad, the Geico auto insurer, several energy and industrial companies, Fruit of the Loom and Dairy Queen.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Bradley Perrett

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