Oil prices jumped on Thursday in Asia after a report that the US military is set to brief President Donald Trump on new plans for potential action in the Iran war.

Brent crude rose by 5% to $124 (£92) a barrel, the highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Energy prices have risen this week as peace talks appeared to have stalled, with the key Strait of Hormuz waterway remaining effectively closed.

US Central Command has prepared a plan for a wave of “short and powerful” strikes on Iran in a moved aimed to break the deadlock in negotiations with Tehran, news site Axios reported. The BBC has contacted US Central Command and the White House for comment.

The Axios report cited anonymous sources, saying the proposed wave of strikes would be likely to include infrastructure targets.

Another plan focused on taking over part of the Strait of Hormuz so that it can be reopened for commercial shipping, Axios reported, adding that doing so could involve troops on the ground.

US-traded West Texas Intermediate crude oil also rose, up by 2.3% at around $109 a barrel.

The current Brent futures contract for June delivery is due to expire on Thursday. The more active July contract was up by about 2% at around $113 in morning trade in Asia.

Futures contracts are agreements to buy or sell an asset at a set date.

A Jewish security agency warned that the security alert level was “high” ahead of the Bondi Beach shooting, a landmark royal commission has found.

The commission – Australia’s most powerful form of public inquiry – was announced in January, three weeks after two gunmen opened fire at an event marking Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people.

The interim report by former High Court judge Virginia Bell also gave 14 recommendations including prioritisation of gun reforms and extending the policing arrangements for Jewish high holy days to other Jewish events as well.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a National Security Committee meeting had agreed to implement all of Bell’s recommendations.

On 14 December last year, a father-and-son duo – armed with rifles and shotguns – targeted a Sunday afternoon event at a Bondi Beach park.

Sajid Akram, 50, was killed by police at the scene of the shootings and his son Naveed Akram – the other alleged attacker – was critically injured and later transferred from hospital to prison.

The 24-year-old has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist attack.

Thursday’s report noted an email sent to New South Wales (NSW) Police by Jewish security group CSG NSW on 8 December advising them of upcoming Jewish events and requesting policing measures.

The email said that the current security alert level for the Jewish community was “‘HIGH. A terrorist attack against the NSW Jewish Community is likely and there is a high level of antisemitic vilification”, according to the report.

NSW Police acknowledged “a request for police presence at these events” but said it had “received no specific request for dedicated police resources” for the Hanukkah event, according to the report.

Differences between the information provided by NSW Police and CSG NSW “cannot be resolved on the information presently available to the Commission,” it continued.

The report also recommended that state and federal governments should prioritise efforts to finalise and implement “nationally consistent” firearms reforms as well as a proposed gun buyback scheme.

Gun reforms put forward in the wake of the shooting have received a lukewarm response from some of Australia’s states and territories, with Queensland, for example, refusing the buyback scheme and a cap on firearms ownership.

The report also said NSW police procedures used for Jewish high holy days should be extended to other “high risk Jewish festivals and events, especially those with a public facing element”.

Other recommendations included a review of joint counter-terrorism teams in Australia – made up of federal and state police forces, and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) – as well as making the counter-terrorism commissioner’s role full time.

Five recommendations remain confidential due to national security concerns.

The prime minister and national cabinet ministers should also take part in counter-terrorism exercises within nine months of each federal election, the report said.

The report said that it had not identified any gap in existing legal frameworks that would have prevented the attack, or impeded the ability of law enforcement or other agencies to respond to it.

“In these respects, no issue requiring urgent or immediate action has been identified,” the report said.

It added that any failures to identify and act upon intelligence in the lead up to the shooting and in the allocation of police to the Hanukkah festival would be addressed in hearings, though some of these may be closed to the public.

Albanese said the report showed “no urgent changes” were required but that governments “could always do better”.

After the report was released local rabbi Yossi Friedman told the BBC that many people in the “tight-knit” Jewish community were still struggling in the aftermath of the attack and were living with the “real feeling that this could happen again”.

“While the [report’s] findings are so important… even more important is not just what happened on the night but how did we get here, how did we allow a surge in antisemitism and violent activity to take place against a segment of the population,” he said.

David Ossip, President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said the report was “an important first step” in examining the circumstances around the attack but that it was “only part of the picture”.

Antisemitism was “not only a law enforcement issue” but a “societal issue” and “the environment for Jewish Australians had been deteriorating well before Bondi”, he said.

Alex Ryvchin, of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told the ABC there were still “burning questions” surrounding the attack including how the Akrams were able to acquire firearms and why the festival hadn’t been better resourced by police.

A first series of public hearings for the inquiry, which is looking at the rise of antisemitism in society and institutions and the events leading up to the mass shooting, is to begin on Monday.

A final report is to be delivered on the anniversary of the shooting.

Bell has previously warned that the scope of the evidence that the inquiry can look at will be limited given the current court proceedings for Naveed Akram.

Additional reporting by Katy Watson

Former FBI Director James Comey surrendered to authorities to face charges alleging that an image he briefly shared on social media posed a threat to the life of US President Donald Trump.

The case stems from a 2025 Instagram post shared by Comey, which contained a photo of seashells on a beach arranged to read “86 47”. “Eighty-six” is a slang term for “get rid of”, and prosecutors allege it encourages violence against Trump, the 47th president.

Comey denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not know what the numbers meant, and accused the prosecution of political motivation.

This marks the second time the justice department has brought criminal charges against Comey, a longtime critic of Trump.

Comey did not enter a plea or speak during his brief appearance at a Virginia court on Wednesday afternoon.

His attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said the former director would seek dismissal on grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution – arguing he was targeted for speaking out against Trump.

Judge William Fitzpatrick read the charges against Comey. He nodded as he was read his rights and later smiled back at his family when he was leaving, the BBC’s US partner CBS News reported.

Judge Fitzpatrick denied the justice department’s efforts to set conditions of release for Comey, saying they were not necessary, according to CBS.

Prosecutors have charged Comey with knowingly and wilfully making a threat to take the life of – and to inflict bodily harm – on the president, and also, knowingly transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to kill him.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

In a video statement on Tuesday, Comey said he was determined to fight the charges.

“This won’t be the end of it – but I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”

Comey’s original post from May 2025 contained an image of the seashells on a beach that spelled out “86 47”, with the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk”.

Following a public outcry, Comey deleted the image and posted a follow-up note on Instagram.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assume were a political message,” he wrote. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Talking to reporters about the charges against Comey on Wednesday, Trump called him a “crooked man”.

“If anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86,” Trump said. “It’s a mob term for kill him. The mob uses that term to say when they want to kill them, they say 86 the son of a gun.”

When asked if he believed Comey’s social media post was a threat to him, the president replied: “Probably.”

“People like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others,” Trump said

Some legal experts – and lawmakers – have questioned the strength of the charges.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis told reporters on Wednesday that he hoped “there’s more to it than just the picture in the sand”.

“Otherwise, I just think it’s another example where we’re going to regret this because we’re setting a fairly low bar,” he said.

Jimmy Gurulé, a former federal prosecutor and former assistant US Attorney General appointed by President George W Bush, said the new indictment was “an embarrassment to the American criminal justice system”.

On Wednesday, when asked whether the case will result in conviction, Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters that it had been investigated “for the past year”.

“If there’s a prosecutor in this country that speaks about what a jury will do, they are not living up to their oath,” he said.

Blanche rejected the suggestion that there were political motives behind the case.

“People should be very wary of threatening the life of President Trump because that is a crime. Full stop,” he said.

In his second term, President Trump has publicly implied that justice department officials should investigate his political adversaries.

Comey was fired by Trump during his first term, after the former FBI director opened an investigation into Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly called for his prosecution – Tuesday’s charges are the administration’s second attempt to do so.

He was first indicted by a federal grand jury in late September on charges that he lied to Congress during testimony and obstructed a congressional proceeding.

Comey pleaded not guilty in October before the case was dismissed in November.

US District Judge Cameron Currie tossed the indictment because of prosecutor Lindsey Halligan’s “invalid” appointment as US attorney.

Halligan, the prosecutor in eastern Virginia who secured the indictments, was not authorised to present the charges to the grand jury, the judge said.