Panorama's week that was March 17 to March 23
On Tuesday, Russia announced a £94.5bn re-armament plan until 2011. The Herald reported President Dmitry Medvedev as saying it was needed to fend off threats posed by Nato's expansion, international terrorism and local conflicts.
Amir Taheri writing in the New York Post however, believed re-armament is due, in part, to fears about ethnic unrest, China's rise and Islamist militancy and that no-one in Moscow believes war with Nato is even remotely probable.
Jeeves posting on the Worldismycountry blog said the clues they were going to re-arm have been around for a while, but as the Daily Express points out, the move comes as Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered to "scrap" part of Britain's nuclear deterrent in exchange for a global disarmament deal.
In Panorama's 2008 Should we be Scared of Russia? reporter Mark Franchetti investigated the growing gulf between Russia and the West and asked if the current tensions might degenerate into a new Cold War or even a violent confrontation.
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On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI made his first trip to Africa and, as reported on the Nothing to do with Arbroath blog, he reignited the controversy over the Catholic Church's stance on condoms. The pontiff argued that distribution of condoms aggravated the problem, rather than helping to contain the virus, the blogger said.
Stephen's Linlithgow Journal commented that there is a need to acknowledge the quality of life wearing a condom can bring, to areas so heavily afflicted by Aids.
Also part of the debate, The Guardian's Comment is Free ran an article by Catholic writer Austen Ivereigh who said, in ways the Pope was right - Aids cannot be solved by condoms, as they are only effective in reducing the spread of Aids if they are used in certain ways.
The article mentioned a Panorama from 2004 called Can condoms kill? which examined the science of condom use, asking if people promoting condoms, or those in the Catholic Church - who want to stop condoms being used - were risking lives.
Thursday, and parts of the UK press claimed that Phill Woolas, the immigration minister, had gaffed by saying that a new Sangatte would be built by the French and British.
It comes after French Immigration Minister Eric Besson recently told an interviewer that his government would build temporary reception centres in Calais - where migrants could get food, sanitation and information about their rights.
The news was perceived by some as a new era of "mini-Sangattes" which might signal a green light to illegal immigrants thinking about coming to the UK.
The Sun accused French officials of performing a U-turn to give the go-ahead - saying illegal immigrants "are set to flock to new mini-Sangattes".
When Panorama recently looked at the issue on Immigration - Time for an Amnesty? reporter Raphael Rowe hosted a lively debate about an amnesty for UK illegal immigrants on his blog
Also on Thursday, The Telegraph reported that a survey of 6,000 people by The Federation of Small business had found a third of small businesses are being hit hard by bank charges with banks either putting up their fees or making the terms of their loans more onerous.
Banks lending to small businesses came under scrutiny in a recent Panorama - Credit Where it's Due. In it Business Secretary Lord Mandelson told reporter and Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis that it's not possible for the government to become a banker: "We have to get the banks to work," he said.
Separate from the Panorama programme, but on the same theme, the internet site Yoosk gave Theo some questions to ask Lord Mandelson.
On Friday, as politics.co.uk reported, former health secretary Patricia Hewitt declared her support for a law change which would enable people to take terminally ill patients abroad for assisted suicide, without fear of prosecution.
Jonny Wright in his blog Hug a Hoodie said that although part of him wants to be cynical about her statement, he believes it is "genuinely a cross-party issue, and if she can achieve something with her campaign, then all power to her."
This was echoed by Lobbydog who said the ability and right to choose when we die is part of what defines us as human.
The Times took a closer look at what was behind Patricia Hewitt's statement declaring that "she has been troubled for many years when contemplating her mortality and the dilemmas of people whose relatives find life unbearable".
But The Guardian reported that the prime minister had signalled his opposition to the proposal.
Friday was also the anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Six years on, and violence and insecurity are no longer the main concern of most Iraqis an opinion poll, partly commissioned by the BBC, suggested.
To mark the anniversary, Panorama reporter Jane Corbin put together pieces of video archive footage from the five years she had been reporting from the country, since the invasion started.
Also to mark the date Pickled Politics set up a thread of remembrance, but many bloggers like Londonmasalsandchips wondered why there has been so little in the news about it.
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