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A self-confessed IRA bomb maker could be questioned in connection with the Birmingham pub bombings, judges heard.

Michael Hayes may also be spoken to by lawyers acting for the coroner in the inquests into the deaths of the 21 victims, which are currently suspended.

Hayes, from Dublin, previously said he took « collective responsibility » for the IRA’s activities in England, including the 1974 pub bombings. Twenty-one people died when two bombs were detonated in the city.

West Midlands Police secured a court order last week to obtain the un-broadcast material from the BBC as part of the continuing criminal investigation.

Families of the victims were at the High Court, sitting in Birmingham, in a legal bid to overturn coroner Sir Peter Thornton QC’s ruling banning the identification of suspects at fresh inquests. They are asking for a judicial review of that decision, in order to widen the inquests’ scope and include « the perpetrator issue ».

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A man is due to appear in court later over an alleged plot to kill the prime minister, Theresa May.

 Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, from north London, is accused of planning to bomb Downing Street security gates and then attack the PM with a knife.

A second man, Mohammed Aqib Imran, 21, of Birmingham, is accused of the preparation of terrorist acts for allegedly planning to travel overseas. They were both arrested on 28 November.

The pair are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in central London. It comes a day after a security review said it was « conceivable » that the Manchester Arena bombing in May, in which 22 people were killed, could have been prevented.

But MI5 chief Andrew Parker told Mrs May and the Cabinet on Tuesday that about nine alleged Islamist terror plots have been foiled since March.

A German tourist has been shot dead and a guide injured during a visit to a volcano in north-eastern Ethiopia.

They were part of a group which had travelled to the Erta Ale volcano. It is not known who carried out the attack, but the Ethiopian government has launched an investigation.

The Afar region, which straddles the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, is known as an operating ground for several separatist groups.

Five years ago, the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Front – the most prominent of the groups – claimed responsibility for the deaths of five tourists and the abduction of four others in the Afar region. The group seeks the creation of an independent Afar homeland, which would include areas of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.

Despite the risks, tourists continue to visit the volcano – found in the heart of the Danakil Depression, which sits at 410ft (125m) below sea level. By some measures the Danakil Depression is considered to be one of the hottest places on earth, with an average reported temperature of 34.4C, but only 100 to 200mm of rainfall per year.

Added to this heat is the volcano, with its lava lake – one of only six in the world, according to this report from the BBC, making it one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

Crew on board a Cathay Pacific plane flying over Japan reported a suspected sighting of last week’s North Korean missile test, the airline said.

The company confirmed that crew witnessed « what is suspected to be the re-entry » of the missile into the earth’s atmosphere. It added that as things stand no flight routes were being modified.

On 29 November North Korea tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile it said could reach anywhere in the US. The test-launch raised tension further with South Korea and the US, who on Monday began their largest ever joint air exercise, which the North has branded an « all-out provocation ».

Described by Pyongyang as its « most powerful » missile, the 29 November launch ended up in Japanese waters but flew higher than any other the North had previously tested.

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Police investigating a bomb found at a Christmas market in Germany on Friday say it was not terrorism but an attempt to blackmail the shipping company, DHL.

The nail bomb was sent in a parcel to a pharmacy near a market in Potsdam.

Police performed a controlled explosion on the device, which was full of explosives but had no detonator.

After scanning a QR code on the package, police found that those involved demanded millions of euros to not set the bomb off.
« The good news is it that we can say, with all likelihood, that the package was not aimed at the Christmas market, » Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schröter said. But he and others warned that there might be more such attempts. Police said a similar package was sent to an online trader based in Frankfurt an der Oder recently.

Germany is on a heightened terror alert, a year after 12 people died in an Islamist attack at a Berlin Christmas market. Officials have warned people to call the police instead of opening suspicious packages. They said people should watch out for smudges, visible wires and unfamiliar or missing return addresses.