Authorities in northern France announced that a minibus collided, on Thursday evening, with a train carriage that was parked on the vehicle loading dock on the French side of the Channel Tunnel, resulting in 19 people being injured.
The bus was transporting heavy truck drivers. The Pas-de-Calais Prefecture stated, in a statement, that “the accident did not result in any deaths, and none of the injured are in danger of their lives.”
She added that rescue teams rushed to the scene, including a helicopter belonging to the Mobile Emergency and Recovery Unit, in addition to members of the border police.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest with assets exceeding $2.2 trillion, may once again be allowed to invest in nuclear weapons manufacturers, under a proposal submitted Thursday.
The fund currently excludes 14 companies, including Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Safran. Because it develops or manufactures nuclear weapons or their components.
The Norwegian government ordered a review of the fund's ethical rules after the criticism it was subjected to due to its investments in groups accused of playing a role in the Gaza war.
A committee established for this purpose, headed by former Central Bank Governor Sven Yedrim, revealed its recommendations on Thursday.
The report stated that the fund can only invest in nuclear companies “based in a state that possesses nuclear weapons based on the definition of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and allied with Norway.”
“This means that several British, French and American arms manufacturing companies will be returned to the fund,” Yedrim explained while presenting the 434-page document.
The committee stressed that other ethical exclusion criteria, such as the manufacture of certain weapons such as biological or chemical weapons, mines, cluster bombs, coal mining, and the production of tobacco or cannabis... will remain unchanged.
The report was delivered to Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who previously served as Secretary General of NATO.
Regarding nuclear weapons producers, Stoltenberg pointed to the “paradox” that exists today, which is that “the Norwegian fund cannot invest in companies that may be crucial to Norway’s security,” at a time when Russia is intensifying its threats to use nuclear weapons, and China is strengthening its arsenal.
The committee also recommends reforming the Ethics Council, an independent body charged with providing recommendations to the Bank of Norway, which manages the fund.
The Council will remain tasked with assessing the risks of companies committing serious violations of ethical standards, but it will lose the ability to directly recommend the exclusion of these companies from the investment portfolio, a power that is currently suspended.
These recommendations must still be subjected to widespread consultation before the government presents its conclusions to Parliament for a vote next spring.
Some parties, especially left-wing ones, criticized the report; An environmental official described the report as “completely unreasonable.”
The fund invests in more than 7,000 companies around the world, and in total owns about 1.5 percent of all listed companies around the world, making it the largest single investor at the global level.
On Thursday, Pope Leo
The Vatican announced that Pope Leo received the Undersecretary for Public Affairs at the Vatican Secretariat of State, or what is known as the “substitute,” Archbishop Paolo Rodelli, and resumed work from the hospital. Rodelli undertakes a large part of the daily administrative work of the Holy See.
The update issued by Pope Leo's personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, and the head of the thoracic surgery department at Gemelli Hospital, Dr. Stefano Margaritura, explained that the results of the tests that the Pope underwent after surgery remained within normal levels, and that the physical therapy session that he underwent, Thursday, included exercises for full movement, while he was performing his daily activities independently.
The two doctors said, “The chest X-ray showed good recovery of the lung that underwent surgery.” “In general, the Pope’s recovery after surgery is going as expected.”
