OSLO: Norway’s government said on Tuesday it had ordered a review of its sovereign wealth fund portfolio to ensure that Israeli companies contributing to the occupation of the West Bank or the war in Gaza were excluded from investments.
The review followed a report by the Aftenposten daily that said the $1.9 trillion fund had built a stake in 2023-24 in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to Israel’s armed forces, including the maintenance of fighter jets.
The fund’s investment in the Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd. (BSEL) group is worrying, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told public broadcaster NRK.
“We must get clarification on this because reading about it makes me uneasy,” Stoere said.
BSEL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the fund, took a 1.3 percent stake in BSEL in 2023 and raised this to 2.09 percent by the end of 2024, holding shares worth $15.2 million, the latest available NBIM records show.
In light of Aftenposten’s story and the security situation in Gaza and the West Bank, the central bank will now conduct a review of NBIM’s Israeli holdings, Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday.
NBIM CEO Nicolai Tangen told NRK that BSEL had not appeared on any lists of recommended exclusions, such as by the United Nations or the fund’s own ethics council.
Norway’s parliament in June rejected a proposal for the sovereign wealth fund to divest from all companies with activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The fund, which owns stakes in 8,700 companies worldwide, held shares in 65 Israeli companies at the end of 2024, valued at $1.95 billion, its records show.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, has sold its stakes in an Israeli energy company and a telecoms group in the last year, and its ethics council has said it is reviewing whether to recommend divesting holdings in five banks.
Norway to review sovereign wealth fund’s Israel investments
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Norway to review sovereign wealth fund’s Israel investments
- The fund’s investment in the Bet Shemesh Engines Ltd. (BSEL) group is worrying, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told public broadcaster NRK
Greek coast guard search for 15 after migrant boat found adrift
- The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were on Monday searching for 15 people who fell into the water from a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of Crete with 17 bodies on board.
The 17 fatalities, all of them men, were discovered on Saturday on the craft, which was taking on water and partially deflated, some 26 nautical miles (48 kilometers) southwest of the island.
Post-mortem examinations were being carried out to determine how they died but Greek public television channel ERT suggested they may have suffered from hypothermia or dehydration.
A Greek coast guard spokeswoman told AFP that two survivors reported that “15 people fell in the water” after the motor cut out on Thursday, then the vessel drifted for two days.
At the time, Crete and much of the rest of Greece was battered by heavy rain and storms.
The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water.
The vessel had 34 people on board and had left the Libyan port of Tobruk on Wednesday, the Greek port authorities said. Most of those who died came from Sudan and Egypt.
It was initially spotted by a Turkish-flagged cargo ship on Saturday, triggering a search that included ships and aircraft from the Greek coast guard and the European Union border agency Frontex.
Migrants have been trying to reach Crete from Libya for the last year, as a way of entering the European Union. But the Mediterranean crossing is perilous.
In Brussels, the EU’s 27 members on Monday backed a significant tightening of immigration policy, including the concept of returning failed asylum-seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
Greece’s conservative government has also toughened its migration policy, suspending asylum claims for three months, particularly those coming to Crete from Libya.
