Category World News

KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, has announced that it will no longer do business with two companies that sell military equipment to Israel because it might be used during the Gaza war.

The two businesses are ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial company that produces everything from elevators and industrial machinery to warships, and Oshkosh Corporation, a US-based business primarily focusing on trucks and military vehicles.

According to Kiran Aziz, the head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, “KLP learned of reports from the UN that several named companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the]Israeli army] and that these weapons are being used in Gaza,”

According to the statement, “We believe that Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp are abiding by our ethical investment standards.”

We have therefore chosen to omit them from our investment universe.

Up until June 2025, the pension fund reported investments worth $1.8 million in Oshkosh and $1.2 million in ThyssenKrupp.

The nation’s largest pension fund, KLP, was established in 1949, and it controls a fund worth about $114 billion. According to its website, it is a public pension fund run by municipalities and businesses in the public sector. Its pension plan covers about 900,000 people, most of whom are municipal employees.

vehicles and warships

KLP claimed to have spoken with both businesses before making its decision and that Oshkosh “confirmed that it has sold, and continues to sell, equipment used by the [Israeli army] in Gaza, mostly vehicles and parts for vehicles.”

ThyssenKrupp informed KLP that it had “a long-term relationship with] the Israeli army]” and that it had delivered four Sa’ar 6 warships to the Israeli Navy between November 2020 and May 2021.

The Israeli Navy will receive a submarine later this year, according to the German company.

When KLP inquired about the checks and balances that were performed when the equipment was delivered, KLP responded that both Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp “failed to provide the necessary due diligence in relation to their potential complicity in humanitarian law violations.”

According to Aziz, “Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to prevent complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law.”

previous divestments

The pension fund has previously dissolved partnerships with businesses that have been linked to alleged human rights violations.

KLP divested from 16 businesses in the occupied West Bank in 2021, including Motorola, which it believed were connected to illegal Israeli settlements.

The pension fund claimed that because of their connections to the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, there was an “unacceptable risk” that the excluded companies were “contributing to the abuse of human rights in times of war and conflict.”

KLP also announced that it was acquiring Adani Ports, an Indian port and logistics company, because of its ties to the Myanmar military administration in the same year.

KLP also dissolved its relationship with US company Caterpillar last summer. According to the KLP’s Aziz, the military and local businesses adjust Caterpillar’s bulldozers in Israel and use them in the occupied Palestinian territory after they are used.

Over the past 20 years, United Nations organizations and nongovernmental organizations have issued a number of human rights warnings about the company’s involvement in the destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure, she wrote.

Therefore, it is impossible to contest the company’s commitment to prevent it from violating any of the company’s laws in the future.

The most recent action builds on previous similar pronouncements made by several large investment funds in Europe that have cut ties with Israeli businesses due to their involvement in the occupation of West Bank or the Gaza war.

Due to the company’s involvement in providing infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements, Norway’s largest sovereign wealth fund announced in May that it would divest from Paz Retail and Energy.

Following a previous decision in December of last year to sell all of Bezeq’s shares of another Israeli company for the services it provided to illegal settlements, this was made.

In recent years, other pension funds and wealth funds have distanced themselves from those who are accused of supporting or supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank or its occupation of Gaza.

The largest pension fund in Denmark dissolved its holdings in February 2024 because it feared that its investments might be used to finance the West Bank settlements.

President Donald Trump’s 940-page “Big, Beautiful Bill” of tax breaks and drastic reductions in healthcare and food programs are now the subject of discussion in the US Senate.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that the bill would add an estimated $3.3 trillion to US debt over the course of ten years during the all-night session on Sunday.

Additionally, according to the bill, 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034.

Republican leaders are resolute to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline, which is the nation’s Independence Day.

But they only managed to pass a procedural vote on Saturday night with barely enough support. It took the support of Vice President JD Vance and phone calls from Trump to keep the legislation on track after a few Republican holdouts rebuffed it.

After Trump threatened to support a primary challenger in retaliation for his “no” vote, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced he would not run for president.

With its drastic reductions in Medicaid, which provides health coverage to low-income people, Tillis claimed he couldn’t support the bill.

Trump praised Tillis’ decision to not run for office by saying in a TruthSocial post, “Great News! Senator “Thom Tillis won’t be running for reelection.”

Other Senate Republicans are urging steeper spending cuts, particularly in healthcare, despite Trump’s own unanticipated warning.

The US president remarked, “REMEMBER, you still need to get reelected,” while addressing “all cost-cutting Republicans.” Avoid becoming too crazy! We’ll add up everything, doubling the number of times, and growing faster than ever.

Overall, the Senate bill includes about $4 trillion in tax cuts, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire if Congress failed to pass, and adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no tips taxes.

By imposing work requirements and making sign-up eligibility more stringent, the Senate package would reverse billions in green energy tax credits that Democrats fear will largely wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide.

Additionally, the bill would fund border and national security with a $ 350 billion infusion, some of which would be funded by new immigration fees.

After earlier requesting that the entire draft of the legislation be read on the Senate floor, which required roughly 16 hours, Democratic Senators who are all opposed to the bill continued to try to halt its passage.

Democrats will continue to “shine a light” on the bill in the coming days, according to Minority Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who claimed Republicans were trying to rush through it before Americans were aware of its contents.

He claimed that some Republicans are trying to pass a bill quickly but they did so under the guise of secrecy and behind closed doors.

According to Schumer, the most recent version of the bill includes changes like “even worse” cuts to clean energy, which would cause Americans to “kill 900, 000 good paying jobs in clean energy” and “even worse” cuts to clean energy.

It is “the most dangerous piece of legislation in our country’s modern history,” according to independent Senator Bernie Sanders.

“We don’t have enough money to provide for hungry children.” He claimed that there is not enough money to provide for the people who need the health care they require. However, there will be a 15% increase in the military industrial complex, or $150 billion.

Tillis’s decision to withdraw from the race show how swayed by Trump’s cult of personality the Republican Party is, he added.

Working families are in great pain while Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is a gift to the billionaire class. The most dangerous piece of legislation that has ever been passed in our nation’s modern history.

I’m ALIVE standing in opposition to this disastrous bill. https://t.co/flAfpXmEzM

The marathon congressional session this weekend has been focused solely on the legislation. The Senate will hold a “vote-a-rama” session following the discussion before approving the bill.

The bill’s completion date was set for Monday, according to lawmakers.

The House would have to hear the bill back if the Senate were to pass it.

Legislators are being called on by Speaker Mike Johnson to travel back to Washington, DC, this week.

According to Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, who is based in Washington, DC, the bill will face “a lengthy process” with “a lot of discussion, debate lying ahead.”

Trump and his supporters “remain confident that it will fulfill many of the promises he made during his campaign,” he said.

Democrats point out that both corporations and the wealthy are beneficiaries of the significant tax relief. They also reaffirm their conviction that the majority of these tax breaks for the wealthy are being largely offset by significant reductions in social welfare programs like food stamps, he said.

The money’s going as well is another factor that will have an impact on Americans. The military’s funding has significantly increased. The funding for those organizations fighting immigration is significantly increased.

The bill includes up to “$45 billion” to build new immigration detention facilities, including family detention facilities, according to the American Immigration Council. As the Trump administration calls for 3, 000 daily immigration arrests, the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in the Florida Everglades is scheduled to open on Tuesday this week.

Republicans appear unafraid despite the opposition.

Republican Senator Katie Britt, a senator from Alabama, stated on Sunday during CNN’s State of the Union that “we are going to make sure hardworking people can keep more of their money.”

The budget committee’s head, Senator Lindsey Graham, made the promise to do everything in her power to bring the bill to Trump’s desk.

On Monday, June 30th, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

• The Ukrainian air force reports that Russia fired its biggest aerial assault on Ukraine since its full-scale invasion overnight and on Sunday, firing 537 total aerial weapons, including 477 drones, decoys, and 60 missiles.
• 475 of the weapons were intercepted by Ukrainian forces, but the military claimed Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustimenko of the F-16 was killed “while repelling” the “massive enemy air attack.”
• According to local officials and the Associated Press news agency, at least four people were also killed in the air raids, which occurred in the regions of Kherson, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kostiantynivka.
• A drone attack in the city of Drohobych caused a large fire at an industrial facility, causing electricity to parts of the area, and the aerial attacks were far-reaching as well.
• Poland claimed that in order to protect Polish airspace during the attack, it flew aircraft with other NATO members. According to the command, none of the Russian missiles entered Poland’s airspace.
• Additionally, two people were killed by Russian shelling, including a 70-year-old woman who was discovered hidden beneath the rubble of a nine-story building in the Zaporizhia region, according to AP.
• The Russian Defense Ministry asserted control of Novoukrainka in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region after claiming control of three Ukrainian drones over the course of one night.
• One person was killed by a Ukrainian drone in the Luhansk region of Russia, according to the RIA Novosti news agency, and two others were hurt in a Ukrainian attack on the border region, according to Kursk, the acting governor of Russia.

Weapons

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, said the air attacks underscored the need for additional assistance from American and Western allies to strengthen the nation’s air defenses.
• He also signed a decree directing Ukraine to leave the anti-personnel mines’ use and production, claiming that Russia has never joined the treaty and uses thems with the utmost cynicism.
• Senior Ukrainian lawmaker Roman Kostenko claimed that the treaty’s withdrawal was still required with parliamentary approval. He claimed that the move would be voted on by legislators.
• The Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that because of this, Russia has “made the difficult but necessary political decision to stop the implementation of irrelevant obligations under the Ottawa Convention.”

diplomacy and politics

• After President Donald Trump told him, “It’s time to move your bill,” US Senator Lindsey Graham informed ABC News that the country’s Congress would begin casting a vote on new Russian sanctions.
• Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, reported to state television that sanctions against Russia would have a negative impact on Europe. The recoil from a gun to the shoulder will be the more serious package of sanctions, which, I repeat, we consider to be illegal. He claimed that this was a double-edged sword.
• Russian spy chief Sergei Naryshkin claimed in remarks made on Sunday that he had spoken with John Ratcliffe, the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and that they had agreed to call each other at any time.