TODAY

The electric carmaker had unveiled chief Elon Musk’s proposed $1 trillion compensation plan in September.

Tesla’s proposed $1 trillion pay package for CEO Elon Musk has come under renewed scrutiny after proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) urged investors to vote against what could be the largest compensation plan ever awarded to a company chief.

ISS’s comments on Friday marks the second consecutive year that it has urged shareholders to reject a compensation plan for Musk.

Proxy advisers often sway major institutional investors, including the passive funds that hold large stakes in Tesla.

The ISS recommendation adds pressure on Tesla’s board before a closely watched November 6 shareholder meeting and renews scrutiny of Musk’s compensation after a Delaware court earlier voided his $56bn pay package.

Musk’s record Tesla pay plan could still hand him tens of billions of dollars even if he falls short of most of its ambitious targets, however, thanks to a structure that rewards partial achievement and soaring share prices.

Last month, Tesla’s board proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan for Musk in what it described as the largest corporate pay package in history, setting ambitious performance targets and aiming to address his push for greater control over the company.

ISS said that while the board’s goal was to retain Musk because of his “track record and vision”, the 2025 pay package “locks in extraordinarily high pay opportunities over the next ten years” and “reduces the board’s ability to meaningfully adjust future pay levels.”

Tesla’s shares rose after the compensation plan was unveiled last month, as investors believe the pay package would incentivise Musk to focus on the company’s strategy.

“Many people come to Tesla to specifically work with Elon, so we recognise that retaining and incentivising him will, in the long run, help us retain and recruit better talent,” Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson said in a video posted to Tesla’s X handle on Friday.

Unlike the 2018 pay deal, Musk will be allowed to vote using his shares this time, giving him about 13.5 percent of Tesla’s voting power, according to a securities filing last month. That stake alone could be enough to secure approval.

The proxy adviser cited the “astronomical” size of the proposed grant, design features that could deliver very high payouts for partial goal achievement and potential dilution for existing investors.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.

ISS valued the stock-based award at $104bn, higher than Tesla’s own estimate of $87.8bn.

The grant would vest only if Tesla reaches market capitalisation milestones up to $8.5 trillion and operational targets, including delivery of 20 million vehicles, one million robotaxis and $400bn in adjusted core earnings.

The proxy adviser’s guidance on Musk’s pay was part of a wider set of voting recommendations issued on Friday.

As of 3:45pm in New York (19:45 GMT), Tesla’s stock was up 2.4 percent.

Two years of Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians – including 20,000 children.

For now, the bombing campaign has largely halted after a ceasefire was agreed last week.

But the Israeli military’s actions in the past 24 months were livestreamed, documented and archived in unprecedented detail.

In September, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. And this week, South Africa said the ceasefire will not affect its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

But the ICJ lacks the resources to carry out arrests unless United Nations member countries decide to act.

So, will Israel be held accountable, or will impunity become the new norm?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Sawsan Zaher – Palestinian human rights lawyer

Dr Mads Gilbert – Researcher and medical doctor who has worked in Palestinian healthcare for more than 30 years

Neve Gordon – Professor of international law at Queen Mary University of London

A week into the ceasefire, Israel has continued to seal Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt despite repeated international calls to allow in large-scale aid deliveries. Meanwhile, Israeli attacks killed and wounded several Palestinians in northern Gaza.

For several days, the United Nations has warned that there has been little progress in aid deliveries into Gaza and that assistance must enter at scale through all border crossings to meet urgent humanitarian needs. Under the deal to end Israel’s genocide, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in two years, Israel was to allow for a surge in aid deliveries.

The UN said on Friday that aid convoys were struggling to reach famine-hit areas of northern Gaza due to bombed-out roads and the continued closure of other key routes – Zikim and Beit Hanoon (called Erez in Israel) – into the enclave’s north.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it has brought an average of 560 tonnes of food per day into Gaza since the ceasefire began last week, but the amount is still below what is needed. The UN agency said it has enough food to feed all of Gaza for three months.

UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher said this week that thousands of aid vehicles would have to enter weekly to tackle widespread malnutrition, displacement, and a collapse of infrastructure.

“We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance,” WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told a news briefing in Geneva.

But the WFP said it had not begun distributions in Gaza City, pointing to the continued closure of Zikim and Beit Hanoon, with Israeli forces remaining in the north of the enclave where the humanitarian crisis is most acute.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, which calls for their gradual withdrawal, Israeli forces remain in approximately 53 percent of Gaza.

“Access to Gaza City and northern Gaza is extremely challenging,” Etefa said, adding that the movement of convoys of wheat flour and ready-to-eat food parcels from the south of the territory was being hampered by broken or blocked roads.

“It is very important to have these openings in the north; this is where the famine took hold. To turn the tide on this famine … it is very important to get these openings.”

Global medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initial MSF, said many relief agencies had not fully returned to the north, where hospitals are barely functioning, leaving many still unable to access regular care.

More Palestinians killed

As calls for much-needed aid continue, Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza have also gone on unabated.

Gaza’s civil defence said its teams are carrying out rescue operations after an Israeli artillery strike hit a small bus carrying a displaced family who were heading to inspect their homes east of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

The attack caused “several deaths and injuries”, the agency said. One injured boy was rescued, while the fate of the others remains unknown “due to the danger at the site” as attempts to reach the area continue.

Separately, three Palestinians were injured, with varying severity, after Israeli forces opened fire towards them in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the Wafa news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Hamas insisted it was committed to returning the remains of Israeli captives still unaccounted for under Gaza’s ruins. The group’s armed wing said it has handed over all the bodies it was able to recover, adding that returning more remains would require allowing heavy machinery and excavation equipment into Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said there is “a clear disconnect” from what the Israeli government is demanding from an area that has been “reduced to rubble”.

With heavy equipment and machinery being blocked by the Israeli military, Israel is creating “a challenge for the residents of Gaza who are experienced and have the expertise to search and to dig out bodies from under the rubble,” Mahmoud said.

He noted that it is not just the bodies of deceased Israeli captives under the rubble, it is the “thousands of Palestinian bodies buried and missing and trapped under tonnes and tonnes of rubble and debris”.

Authorities in Gaza have also been struggling to identify dozens of bodies of slain Palestinians that were returned by Israel earlier this week. Only six out of 120 bodies have been formally identified so far, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry said the bodies exhibit signs of torture, including hanging and rope marks, bound hands and feet, and gunfire at close range.

The bodies showed “conclusive evidence of field executions and brutal torture”, Gaza’s Government Media Office said.

Hamas disarmament

The next phases of the truce are expected to address the disarmament of Hamas, possible amnesty for its leaders who lay down their weapons, and the question of who will govern Gaza after the war.

Hamas politburo member Mohammad Nazzal said the group intends to maintain security control in Gaza during an interim period, adding that he could not commit to disarmament.

He told the Reuters news agency Hamas was prepared for a ceasefire lasting up to five years to allow for the reconstruction of Gaza, provided Palestinians are offered “horizons and hope” towards statehood.

Asked whether Hamas would give up its weapons, Nazzal replied, “I can’t answer with a yes or no. Frankly, it depends on the nature of the project. The disarmament project you’re talking about – what does it mean? To whom will the weapons be handed over?”

He added that any discussion about weapons would not concern Hamas alone but also other armed Palestinian factions, and would require a collective Palestinian position in the next round of negotiations.

The government has said it is “doing everything in our power” to overturn a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending a football match in Birmingham and is exploring what additional resources could be required.

On Thursday, Aston Villa said the city’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) decided that fans of the Israeli club should not be permitted to attend the Europa League fixture on 6 November over safety concerns.

Facing mounting pressure to resolve the situation, the government said it was working with police and exploring what additional resources are required.

A meeting of the SAG to discuss the match is expected next week, the Home Office said.

“No one should be stopped from watching a football game simply because of who they are,” a government spokesperson said.

They added the government was working with police and other bodies to ensure the game could “safely go ahead with all fans present”.

After it was announced on Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer called the move to block fans attending “wrong”, adding “we will “not tolerate antisemitism on our streets”, while there has also been criticism from other party leaders.

The SAG – which advises the council on whether to issue safety certificates – will review the decision if West Midlands Police changes its risk assessment for the match, Birmingham City Council said.

On Thursday, West Midlands Police said it had classified the fixture as “high risk” based on current intelligence and previous incidents, including “violent clashes and hate crime offences” between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv fans before a match in Amsterdam in November 2024.

More than 60 people were arrested over the violence, which city officials described as a “toxic combination of antisemitism, hooliganism, and anger” over the war in Gaza, Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Home Office was briefed that restrictions on visiting fans might be imposed last week, but the BBC understands officials were not informed about the final decision until Thursday.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the revelation left the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, with “serious questions to answer” about why her department did “nothing” to avert the ban.

She said: “This is a weak government that fails to act when required.”

A source close to Mahmood told the BBC that “this is categorically untrue”.

“The first time the home secretary knew that the fans were being banned was last night,” they added.

Ayoub Khan, an independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr who campaigned on a pro-Gaza platform in last year’s general election, had pushed for the match to be cancelled due to safety concerns and welcomed Thursday’s decision.

Khan told BBC Newsnight “nobody should tolerate antisemitism” but added: “We cannot conflate antisemitism when we look at what some of these fans did in Amsterdam in 2024. The vile chants of racism and hatred, the chants that there are no schools left in Gaza because there are no children left in Gaza.”

Andrew Fox, honorary president of Aston Villa’s Jewish Villans supporters’ club, said he thought Khan’s comments on Amsterdam were “shameful”, describing what happened there as a “premeditated Jew hunt”.

The U.S. Army is in the very early stages of formulating a vision for fleets of advanced and highly autonomous drones in a similar vein to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) that the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Navy are now developing. The Army’s CCA endeavor may ultimately be linked, at least in some way, with work already being done on so-called “launched effects,” a term generally applied to smaller uncrewed aerial systems designed to be fired from other platforms in the air, as well as on the ground and at sea.

Army aviation officials talked about the current state of the service’s CCA plans during a roundtable on the sidelines of the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual conference this week, at which TWZ was in attendance. The topic had also come up elsewhere during the three-day event, which ended yesterday. Army CCAs would be primarily expected to operate in close cooperation with the service’s existing crewed helicopters, as well as its future MV-75A tiltrotors.

“So, one, we’re following the other services very closely as they’re looking at this, this [CCA] concept,” Brig. Gen. Phillip C. Baker, the Army’s Aviation Future Capabilities Director, said. at the roundtable. “I think for the Army, especially launched effects, it comes down to a discussion of mass. … A platform, a loyal wingman, a CCA concept, allows you to increase mass while also reducing the amount of aviators you’ve got to have in the air.”

Baker noted that the Army is working in particular with U.S. military commands in the Pacific and European regions as it begins to explore potential CCA requirements, which might lead to an operational capability in the next few years. For the past year or so, the Army has been working to figure out “the capabilities that they need in order to deliver that mass, and really survivability,” he added.

At present, a key aspect of the ongoing discussions within the Army seems to be focused on where the service’s existing work on launch effects ends and where a CCA-like effort might begin.

“Launched effects, if you think about it, is a CCA, right?” Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, also said at the round table. “These are things that we’re going to launch off of aircraft and are going to operate in a collaborative fashion, potentially autonomously, but we’re going to give them instructions, and they’re going to operate based off of guidance, either off of something on the ground or maybe they’re being quarterbacked in the air.”

“Manned-unmanned teaming is the future. We’ve talked about the potential of launched effects off the aircraft, or a potential loyal wingman,” Col. Stephen Smith, head of the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, better known as the Night Stalkers, had also said during a separate panel at this year’s AUSA conference. Smith had talked about increased use of drones as part of larger efforts to help his unit operate more effectively and just survive in higher-threat environments during future high conflicts, which you can read more about here.

The Army is already envisioning at least three categories of launched effects, broken down into short, medium, and long-range types. They could be configured for a variety of missions, including reconnaissance, electronic warfare, communications relays, and as acting as loitering munitions or decoys. The service has long said that it sees these systems, which could also be networked together in highly autonomous swarms, operating forward of friendly forces, extending the reach of their capabilities, while also reducing their vulnerability.

In some broad strokes, the benefits that launched effects and CCA-types drones offer do align, on top of the “affordable mass” they both promise to provide. However, as the Army currently describes them, even the largest launched effects are substantially smaller and less capable than something in the generally accepted CCA, or ‘loyal wingman,’ category. Most, if not all launched effects are also expected to be fully expendable, unlike a CCA. Any Army CCAs would likely carry launched effects themselves, further extending the reach of the latter drones into higher-risk environments, as well as the overall area they can cover quickly. This, in turn, would allow for a crewed-uncrewed team capable of executing a complex and flexible array of tactics.

When asked then to clarify whether a future Army CCA effort would be distinct from the service’s current launched effects efforts, Maj. Gen. Gill said that “it could be, yes.”

“So, last fall, we actually asked industry what they can provide for a Group 4 VTOL/STOL [vertical takeoff and landing/short takeoff and landing] perspective,” Brig. Gen. David Phillips, head of the Army’s Program Executive Office for Aviation (PEO-Aviation). “So we use that as a great set of information on what the state of the art of technology is from a range, speed, payload, and really effects perspective. What can we bring to bear, given modern technology versus some of our older UAS [uncrewed aerial systems].”

The U.S. military groups uncrewed aircraft into five categories. Group 4 covers designs with maximum takeoff weights over 1,320 pounds, but typical operating altitudes of 18,000 feet Mean Sea Level (MSL) or below. As mentioned already, this is far heavier and higher-flying than any of the UASs the Army is currently considering to meet its launched effects needs.

“I think we’re informing Gen. Gill and Gen. Baker’s teams on what industry has told us on what requirement that shapes out to be,” Phillips added. “It might not look like some of the things we’ve seen on the [AUSA show] floor today. But I can tell you, we received a very robust response from industry, and it’s a combination of maybe some of the things you’d seen on the floor, but we’re excited to start thinking about that space.”

Boeing announced plans for a family of new tiltrotor drones, collectively called Collaborative Transformational Rotorcraft, or CxRs, at this year’s AUSA conference, which you can read more about here. The company said the designs will fall into the Group 4 and Group 5 categories. Per the U.S. military’s definitions, the only difference between Group 4 and Group 5 is that the nominal operating altitude for the latter extends above 18,000 feet MSL.

Last week, Sikorsky, now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, announced its own plans to expand existing work on a VTOL drone with a so-called rotor-blown wing configuration into a full family of designs dubbed Nomad, which is set to include a Group 4 type. You can learn more about Nomad, which was also showcased at AUSA, here.

Nearly a decade ago now, Bell also announced it was working on a design for a Group 5 tiltrotor drone called the V-247 Vigilant, aimed originally at a Marine Corps requirement. The V-247, or a scaled-down derivative, could be another starting place for a future Army CCA. Bell has notably shown renderings, like the one below, depicting V-247s operating together with versions of its crewed V-280 Valor tiltrotor design, which the Army’s MV-75A is based on.

Brig. Gen. Baker said that experimentation with CCA concepts, to varying degrees, is already underway, and that more is planned for the near future. He also pointed out that the Army is presented with unique questions to answer compared to the Air Force, Marines, and Navy, given that those services primarily expect CCA-type drones to operate collaboratively with higher and faster-flying fixed-wing tactical jets. The Army, in contrast, as noted, sees any such uncrewed aircraft partnered with its existing helicopters, as well as its future MV-75A tiltrotors, with much lower and slower operational flight profiles. It is worth noting here that the other services still have many questions to answer when it comes to their future CCA fleets, including how they will be deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated, let alone employed tactically.

The video below from Collins Aerospace offers a relevant depiction of what the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy expect future air combat operations involving their CCAs to look like.

“So, our experimentation really lies in two areas. One, our modeling that we do constantly. We do that with the feedback that [Brig.] Gen. Phillips talked about from industry. How do you put that [notional system] into a threat environment, and how does that play out, and really render the specifications that we’re looking at,” Baker explained. “The second piece is, we do an annual experimentation out west. That will be the second quarter this year. And, so, we are looking at vendors, potentially, to come out and partner with us to build off the study that [Brig.] Gen. Phillips did, of what’s truly [the] capability out there.”

“When you look at a CCA role for – really linked to rotary wing, that is a different dynamic than you have at 20-to-30,000 feet,” he added. “So it’s a whole set of different behaviors, a whole set of different capability you need to marry that up with an aircraft that’s flying at 100 feet, at 150-plus knots, at night. So that is what we’re really looking at, is what is the state of technology right now to develop a requirement that we can deliver.”

Altogether, the Army still clearly has many questions of its own to answer as it begins to explore concepts for future CCA-drones in earnest, including how such a program would fit in with work it is already doing in the uncrewed aerial systems space.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Hungary in the very near future, where he will meet United States counterpart Donald Trump for a second summit on ending the war in Ukraine. The first – in Alaska in August – failed to result in any agreement.

But, with an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in 2023 for Putin’s arrest over the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia’s war with Ukraine, how will the fugitive from justice make it to the negotiating table?

Signatories of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based court in 2002, are required to arrest those subject to warrants as soon as they enter their territory – which theoretically includes airspace, which is also considered sovereign territory under international law.

Hungary, which recently stated its intention to withdraw from the agreement – making it a safe space for Putin – is surrounded by countries which would be bound by this.

However, the ICC, which has 125 member states, has no police force and hence no means of enforcing arrests.

So what awaits Putin on his upcoming jaunt?

Isn’t Hungary technically an ICC member, too?

On paper, yes. But it’s on the way out.

In April, right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced the country would be ditching the ICC’s founding document when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit. Netanyahu is also on the ICC’s most-wanted list for Gaza war crimes – his arrest warrant was issued earlier this year.

The Hungarian parliament approved a bill back in May to trigger the withdrawal process, which becomes official one year after the United Nations Secretary-General receives a written notification of the decision.

Given Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s comments on Friday on the “sovereign” country’s intent to host the president with “respect”, ensuring he has “successful negotiations, and then returns home”, Putin seems safe from any arrest on Hungarian soil.

What about airspace? Could he be intercepted mid-air?

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, “many questions” need to be resolved before Putin sets off on his journey. One of those questions is likely to regard the president’s flight path.

Putin will probably want to avoid the Baltic states after recent violations of Estonia’s airspace by Russian jets, which have put the region on high alert for a potential overspill from the Ukraine war. The Baltics could well force a hard landing.

Friendly Belarus might provide a convenient corridor between the Baltics and Ukraine further south, but this would set the president on course for Poland, which has historically strained relations with the Kremlin and recently warned Europe to prepare for a “deep” Russian strike on its territory. Russian drones have also recently breached Polish airspace.

Slovakia, which is led by Moscow-leaning populist Robert Fico, is still guzzling Russian energy in defiance of Trump’s orders to European countries to stop oil and gas imports, and may be more accommodating. Indeed, Fico is on a collision course with fellow EU members over sanctions against Moscow. But Putin would still need to cross Poland before reaching Slovakia.

Putin’s direct route to Budapest, therefore, appears littered with obstacles.

What about a more circuitous route?

Putin may be inspired by fellow ICC fugitive Netanyahu, wanted for crimes including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinian civilians in war-ravaged Gaza, who avoided several European countries on his way to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Wing of Zion plane briefly flew over Greek and Italian territory, but then ducked south, entirely avoiding French and Spanish airspace before heading over the Atlantic, according to FlightRadar24.

Flying south could be an option for Putin as well. Georgia, whose Georgian Dream governing party suspended Tbilisi’s bid to join the European Union, is a signatory to the Rome Statute but could potentially be relied on to turn a blind eye.

And Turkiye, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, but which has long walked a tightrope between Russia and NATO and hosted previous attempts between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on ending the war, could be amenable to allowing the Russian president to pass.

From there, the main obstacle would be Greece, providing a route through the Balkan states to Orban’s respectful welcome.

Has Putin made other trips since becoming an internationally wanted war criminal?

Putin has clearly limited his travels since the ICC warrant was issued.

Last year, he hopped over the border to ICC member Mongolia, where he was treated to a lavish ceremony featuring soldiers on horseback by Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.

Mongolia has very friendly relations with Russia, on which it depends for fuel and electricity. The country has refrained from condemning Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and has abstained during votes on the conflict at the UN, so it was little surprise to see the red carpet being rolled out.

Flying to Alaska for a bilateral with Trump last August was easy since the president could completely avoid hostile countries, flying over his country’s huge land mass over the Bering Strait to the US, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Similarly, this year’s visit to “old friend” and neighbour Xi Jinping for a huge military parade and a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation posed no problems since China is not a party to the ICC.

This month, the Russian president met Central Asian leaders with whom he is eager to bolster ties in Tajikistan, which has signed up to the Rome Statute.

Will Putin ever be arrested?

The arrest warrants mark the first step towards an eventual trial, although the capture of Russia’s president is almost inconceivable.

Only a few national leaders have ended up in The Hague.

The former Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, surrendered to The Hague earlier this year to face charges of crimes against humanity. The charges pertain to extrajudicial killings committed during his widely condemned “war on drugs”, which killed thousands of people.

The former Liberian president and warlord, Charles Taylor, was convicted in 2012 by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which held proceedings in The Hague. He was found guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Would a future Russian leader decide to forcibly hand Putin over, as was the case with Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, extradited to The Hague after his removal in 2000, for atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia wars?

That would necessitate a seismic shift in the Kremlin’s power dynamic, which seems unlikely for the time being.

Widespread regional anger over Israel’s war on Gaza, and beyond, will likely prove a major obstacle to any further signatories to the accords.

United States President Donald Trump has said he expects an expansion of the Abraham Accords soon and hopes Saudi Arabia will join the pact that normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and some Arab states, one week into the all-encompassing and fragile Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

“I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in,” Trump said in an interview broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network.

The US president called the pact a “miracle” and “amazing” and hailed the United Arab Emirates’s signing of it.

The “Abraham Accords” secured agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

“It’ll help bring long-lasting peace to the Middle East,” Trump claimed with his signature bombast.

But there are several factors at play since the original iteration of the accords, signed with fanfare at the White House during Trump’s first term as president in 2020.

Israel has carried out a two-year genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, escalated its harsh assault on the occupied West Bank, and beyond Palestine, bombed six countries in the region this year, including key Gulf Arab mediator Qatar, the huge diplomatic fallout from which effectively helped Trump force Israel into a ceasefire in Gaza.

An emergency summit of Arab and Muslim countries held in Doha in September, in the wake of the attack, staunchly declared its solidarity with Qatar and condemned Israel’s bombing of the Qatari capital.

The extraordinary joint session between the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) gathered nearly 60 member states. Leaders said the meeting marked a critical moment to deliver a united message following what they described as an unprecedented escalation by Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of a “Greater Israel”, has also been roundly condemned by Arab and Muslim countries, and involves hegemonic designs on Lebanese and Syrian territory, among others. Syrian President al-Sharaa, while welcoming Washington’s moves to end its international isolation, has not been warm to the idea of signing up to the Abraham Accords.

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem appealed to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to mend relations with the Lebanese armed group, aligned with Iran, and build a common front against Israel.

An August survey from the Washington Institute, a pro-Israel think tank in the US, found that 81 percent of Saudi respondents viewed the prospect of normalising relations with Israel negatively.

A Foreign Affairs and Arab Barometer poll from June came to similar findings: in Morocco, one of the Abraham Accords signatories, support for the deal fell from 31 percent in 2022 to 13 percent in the months after Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Saudi Arabia has also repeatedly asserted its commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognition of Israel on resolving the plight of Palestinians and establishing a Palestinian state.

Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton is making an initial court appearance as he faces charges in an 18-count indictment of mishandling classified information. Bolton, who served under Donald Trump in his first term, has become a vocal critic of the US president.

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has arrived at a federal court to surrender to authorities on charges of mishandling classified information.

The 18 charges stem from allegations he shared or retained sensitive materials, including some characterised as top secret.

Bolton served during Trump’s first administration but parted with the White House contentiously, and has become one of the president’s most vocal public critics.

The indictment makes Bolton, 76, the third of the US president’s political opponents to face charges in recent weeks. Bolton has said he would defend his “lawful conduct”.

Prosecutors have accused Bolton of using personal messaging apps and email to illegally transmit sensitive information.

“These documents revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations,” prosecutors wrote.

Responding to the charges, Bolton said he would defend his “lawful conduct.”

He added he had “become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he [Trump] deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts.”

The Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) annual symposium has seen some notable appearances by autonomous launchers, underscoring the service’s growing interest in this class of system. On show at the event were a new Family of Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicles (FMAV) from Oshkosh Defense, as well as Raytheon’s DeepFires. Between them, these platforms can be armed with a wide variety of offensive and defensive weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot surface-to-air missiles.

Extreme Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle (X-MAV)

The FMAV series from Oshkosh Defense comprises three different truck chassis that can carry a wide variety of weapons. The three vehicles are described as being “production-ready” by the manufacturer and comprise the following:

The largest of the FMAV series, the purpose-built X-MAV is able to support long-range munitions, including a podded launcher with four Tomahawk missiles. The 10×10 wheeled chassis offers off-road mobility, as well as integrated onboard power. Oshkosh is aiming the X-MAV at the U.S. Army’s Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher Heavy (CAML-H) program.

In August, the Army revealed more details of CAML-H, which aims to integrate a launcher onto a 15-ton class chassis that will fire either Tomahawk missiles or the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) interceptor.

It is also worth noting here that the Army is already fielding the Typhon missile system, which includes tractor-trailer launchers capable of firing Tomahawks and SM-6s. Meanwhile, however, the Army has begun looking at smaller launchers that are easier to deploy as companions to Typhon, something we have reported on in the past.

Medium Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle (M-MAV)

The medium entrant in the family is based on the existing 6×6 Oshkosh FMTV A2. The M-MAV can be operated as an optionally crewed or fully autonomous launcher, equipped with the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) family of munitions. These munitions include the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), as well as future weapons like the Joint Reduced Range Rocket (JR3).

“M-MAV delivers advanced navigation, remote operation, and automated resupply capabilities to increase survivability, reduce crew burden, and enable dispersed, resilient fires formations,” Oshkosh said in its press release.

Light Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicle (L-MAV)

The L-MAV is derived from the U.S. Marine Corps ROGUE-Fires and is a 4×4 autonomous carrier. It uses a modular design, so it can be rapidly configured for missions. These include counter-uncrewed aerial systems (C-UAS), electronic warfare, or resupply, for example. Examples of payloads shown at AUSA were the AeroVironment Switchblade 600 loitering munition and the Titan C-UAS.

“The Army has been clear on the need for autonomous, payload-agnostic platforms that are ready now,” said Pat Williams, chief programs officer at Oshkosh Defense, as he outlined the FMAV series. “The Oshkosh Family of Multi-Mission Autonomous Vehicles is engineered on proven tactical vehicles, with scalable autonomy and payload versatility to deliver what the Army needs today with the flexibility to adapt as the battlefield evolves.”

Raytheon DeepFires

Meanwhile, Raytheon revealed more details of its DeepFires autonomous launcher, which uses the Oshkosh FMTV A2 — the same platform employed by the middle-tier M-MAV. Raytheon has already been using the FMTV A2 platform for its DeepStrike autonomous launcher, which you can read more about here.

As for DeepFires, this has been designed for modularity, able to pivot very quickly from offensive or defensive fires. The vehicle is also designed for optionally crewed or fully autonomous operations and has already been tested.

Weapons payloads for DeepFires range from the AIM-9X Sidewinder for air defense all the way up to the Tomahawk. Raytheon has been tight-lipped about exactly how many rounds of each type of missile can be loaded on a single vehicle, although a promotional video from the company shows one of the trucks carrying two containerized Tomahawk rounds. Meanwhile, one of the DeepFires vehicles exhibited at AUSA was loaded with four Patriot missiles.

Speaking to media, including TWZ, at AUSA, Brian Burton, vice president, Precision Fires and Maneuver at Raytheon, hinted at the possibility of carrying significant numbers of smaller weapons, like the AIM-9X:

“One of the big things when we got feedback from the warfighters was more magazine depth. Not a surprise. We hear that all the time. So, this is something that we’ve been looking at from the very beginning — how do we increase that? So, it can vary, but you’re looking at a significant increase in magazine depth, and that’s obviously important to whether you’re putting additional fires down range or it’s just defending your area.”

Another key requirement that emerged from Army feedback on DeepFires was onboard vehicle power. Not only does the onboard power allow for the handling, including reloading, of missile rounds, but it also provides additional mobility, since the vehicle is not tied to a separate generator. “That was a key piece that came out of touchpoints with the customer and feedback that we incorporated, and they’re really excited about that,” Burton said.

Also built into the DeepFires concept, from the outset, is air transportability, including by the C-130 airlifter. “We wanted to put something together that could be very mobile,” Burton explained, “and [to] be able to get on that [C-130] platform gives the warfighters a lot more flexibility as to where they can get to and how quickly they can get there, and how quickly they can get out.”

The air transportability of DeepFires also helps answer broader U.S. military concerns about establishing diverse, distributed logistics chains. These are seen as an essential requirement for supporting future operations in contested environments, especially in the context of a potential future high-end conflict, including in the Pacific.

The relevance of DeepFires to the Indo-Pacific theater is something that was referenced directly by Scott Sanders, chief growth officer at Forterra, the company that provides the autonomous capabilities for the system. “The only thing more terrifying than a fleet of unmanned vehicles hiding in the Indo-PACOM somewhere is probably a B-21,” he said.

At the same time, a system such as this could be highly relevant for contingencies in the European theater, where long-range precision fires are increasingly seen as necessary to offset potential Russian aggression. In the near future, it may also be possible that Ukraine will need a launcher of this kind, should it be approved to receive Tomahawks. Ukraine has some experience in this area, having already been successful with remote Patriot launcher operations.

For autonomous operations, an operator is able to control between one to six DeepFires vehicles, depending on theater requirements. The vehicles can be controlled independently, using a route-following approach. In this mode, they will be given endpoint goals where the firing battery is required, and they will self-navigate from point A to point B.

Alternatively, Raytheon is proposing a “follower technique,” in which the first vehicle is crewed. “You can pick up a string of [uncrewed] vehicles behind you, move really quickly to your firing point, disperse via waypoint-based navigation into your firing points, and regroup,” Burton explained. In terms of command and control, DeepFires is intended to be “relatively comms agnostic,” Burton said, meaning that it can be operated using a variety of different networks and bandwidths, including via satellite link.

When asked whether DeepFires is being pitched directly at the Army’s Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher (CAML) program, Burton said that Raytheon is “100 percent tracking and pursuing the CAML opportunity. They’ve seen this as an opportunity, and they are moving out quickly to get this capability into their hands.”

Since DeepFires is designed around scalability, Burton said that the launcher could be optimized for both the Medium and Heavy segments of that program: CAML-M and CAML-H.

“We can scale and, working with Oshkosh and with Forterra, bring that to a larger, heavier vehicle, if that’s what the demand and the means are for the Army,” Burton observed.

Other options for DeepFires could include the possibility of a separate autonomous launcher that would be dedicated to air defense, building upon the planned integration of the AIM-9X and Patriot on the basic platform. “Certainly, we’re looking at both,” Burton said, noting that Raytheon also provides a lot of in-house air defense capabilities, including counter-uncrewed aerial systems (C-UAS). These include the Coyote Block 2, a jet-powered drone-like loitering interceptor that the Army currently fields as part of the mobile and fixed-site versions of its Low, Slow, Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System (LIDS). 

With a growing focus on battlefield survivability in the face of drone proliferation, of the kind that’s been seen in the war in Ukraine, Raytheon says it’s considering C-UAS capabilities that are indigenous to the platform itself, or mounted on a different, dedicated platform.

The appearance of these somewhat-related autonomous launchers at AUSA points again to the U.S. military’s interest in flexible, highly mobile, very hard to target systems that offer significant reach and relevant magazine capacity, and which are optimized for future scenarios in the Indo-Pacific region.

Already, the Army has explored this concept with an uncrewed derivative of the HIMARS launcher vehicle called the Autonomous Multi-domain Launcher (AML).

Building on the prototype AML, the Army has since put out a contracting notice outlining a potential family of uncrewed launcher vehicles — the aforementioned CAML, which the Oshkosh and Raytheon options may well end up competing for.

Various kinds of autonomous launchers would be particularly relevant in future expeditionary or distributed operations, especially across the broad expanses of the Pacific during a future major conflict with China, or for trying to deter one. This is a reality that is clearly not lost on the various companies presenting systems in this class at AUSA this week.

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