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Review prompted by Gaza action calls for Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to lift ethical risk limitations on its investments.

A government-appointed committee has called for Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to lift limitations on its investments based on ethical risks, including those regarding nuclear weapons and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

In a report released on Thursday, the committee said the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which controls assets totalling nearly $2.3 trillion, should be allowed to invest in companies that produce nuclear weapons. With reference to Gaza, it also called for the fund to refrain from involvement in diplomatic issues.

Led by former Central Bank Governor Svein Gjedrem, the committee recommended easing the fund’s investment conditions as part of a broader overhaul that would give its manager, the central bank, greater discretion over how it addresses ethical risks.

The review was prompted in part by controversy over the fund’s disinvestment last year from United States construction giant Caterpillar. The fund said the move was prompted by Caterpillar’s purported involvement in rights violations perpetrated by Israel amid its genocidal war on Gaza and in the occupied West Bank. Washington has since pressured Oslo over the move.

“Parts of the rationale for the appointment of the Committee was the Fund’s management related to the war in Gaza,” the committee commissioned by the government said. In the report, it argued that decisions regarding “another state’s conduct” should not be made by the fund but “reserved for the ordinary diplomatic channels of the Norwegian authorities”.

The unanimous recommendations of the committee in the report, which was submitted to the Ministry of Finance, also called for a review of the fund’s exclusion of investment in companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons.

Citing Norway’s reliance on NATO’s nuclear deterrent and a worsening security environment, the report suggested that investments in companies based in the US, United Kingdom and France that are involved in the production of nuclear weapons should be allowed.

The proposals also extended to reshaping the role of the fund’s independent ethics watchdog, allowing some assessments of potential investments to remain confidential.

‘Pandora’s box’

The report has already provoked a backlash in Norway, with opposition politicians slamming the potential changes. Meanwhile, analysts suggested that weakening ethics considerations could have a wide impact.

“If the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund – often considered a global gold standard – changes its posture towards nuclear weapons, it will open Pandora’s box for many global investors to follow suit,” Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore Business School, told Al Jazeera.

The committee framed the proposed change as an obligation to protect Norway’s national security, citing the country’s dependence on its allies’ nuclear umbrella.

“The global security situation has changed. Norway is building up its defence capabilities, and the protection provided by NATO’s nuclear umbrella has become increasingly important. The companies that would be reincluded produce weapons that Norway needs for its own defence”, the report argued.

Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, told Al Jazeera the report was “an encouraging initiative in a world that has become alarmingly complacent about the risks of nuclear war, with every major nuclear arms control agreement dead, dying or on life support, and the longstanding taboo against threat or use eroding”.

Amid US President Donald Trump’s shake-up of NATO, European countries are increasingly looking to join France’s nuclear deterrent umbrella.

Trump said on Thursday that Washington is holding talks with Russia and China aimed at denuclearising the countries with the biggest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

However, Loh warned that shifting the Norwegian fund’s investment conditions could encourage investment by others in nuclear companies “in scenarios different from the Norwegian’s condition of the invested companies being based in allied, nuclear-armed NATO countries”.

The amount of time children in England spend on screens at school could be harming their “physical and developmental health”, a group of more than 150 clinicians has warned.

GPs, paediatricians and other specialists said in an open letter to Education Secretary Lucy Powell and Health Secretary Yvette Cooper that tablets and laptops are being used without a full understanding of their long-term health impacts, including on eye health.

The clinicians said they are prescribing glasses, hearing aids and speech therapy to children “for a problem that is unintentionally being made worse in our schools”.

The government said it was consulting on screen time guidance for children aged five to 18 but that technology could be a powerful learning tool if used properly.

The group of clinicians said nearly one million children are using screens in most lessons, despite studies suggesting a rise in short-sightedness.

They pointed to an analysis of 276 studies covering 5.4 million participants around the world.

That analysis, they claimed, found a rise in short-sightedness among children and adolescents from around 24% in 1990 to almost 36% by 2023, warning the condition is associated with an increased risk of a range of eye health problems.

Many children now spend longer on screens in the classroom than is recommended in a 24-hour period, the letter said, adding: “As a country, we need to wake up to this now, and start rolling back screen use in schools before the damage compounds further.”

One of its signatories was, Dr Becky Foljambe NHS GP and founder of Health Professionals for Safer Screens. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme parents had not been given the chance to “opt out” of the “excessive” use of screens in schools, which risks children “just not thriving” in education.

She said an “explosion” in short-sightedness “cannot be put down to genetics alone”.

Foljambe said it was a “lazy argument” to advocate for screen use to prepare children for a digital work, adding: “They also need their sleep, their eyesight, they need rest, they need ability to critically think and appraise.”

“We are conscious that some of this evidence is still surfacing but the direction of travel is consistent across multiple, independent, and in some cases very large, bodies of research,” the letter continued.

It also warned that children with special educational needs are “disproportionately” directed to screen-based learning.

A Department for Education spokesperson said the government was developing new screen-time guidance for children aged five to 18, and will consult on the safety of artificial intelligence and educational technology in schools.

They said: “Used well, technology can be a powerful tool to support learners who need it and free up teachers to deliver the excellent education every child deserves.”

It comes after a ban on smartphones in schools in England came into force in June, making individual schools and trusts legally responsible for being phone-free throughout the day.