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SvennoJ on 03 September 2024
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Norway wealth fund may divest from companies that aid Israel: Reuters

Norway’s $1.7 trillion wealth fund may soon be forced to divest shares of companies that violate the fund watchdog’s new, tougher ethics standards for businesses that aid Israel’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territory, Reuters news agency reports.

The Council on Ethics for the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund sent a letter in late August to the Finance Ministry that summarises the changes, the agency said.

The letter did not specify how many nor name companies whose stocks might be sold but suggested it would be a small number, should the board of the central bank, which has the final say, follow recommendations that the council makes.

Some of the companies that the watchdog will be looking at are RTX Corp, General Electric and General Dynamics. According to NGOs, they make weapons used by Israel in Gaza, where its military offensive has killed nearly 41,000 Palestinians.

The fund is widely influential and has been an international leader in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment field. It owns 1.5 percent of the world’s listed shares across 8,800 companies.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October, the fund’s ethics watchdog has been investigating whether more companies fall outside its permitted investment guidelines.

Rights groups slam ‘glaring legal errors’ in UK’s partial ban on arms exports

The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the Al-Haq rights groups say they are challenging omissions from the UK government’s partial ban on arms exports to Israel, including the exclusion of fighter jet parts and weapons used by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The two groups, which launched legal action against the UK government over its arms exports to Israel last October, say there are “glaring legal errors” in the government’s announcement, which they say came “less than 24 hours before a crucial hearing in the High Court”.

“While we welcome these initial measures, we are deeply concerned about the continued exclusion of crucial F-35 fighter jet components, from UK restrictions,” Shawan Jabarin, the general director of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said in a statement.