Panorama's week that was - April 20 - April 26
Budget day dominated the headlines last week and brought news that the government has given the go-ahead for a new generation of - but only if they can prove that they can reduce their emissions.
Up to four new plants will be built if they are fitted with technology to .
Green groups welcomed the move but said any new stations would still release more carbon than they stored. On the the announcement was heralded the as a clear indication that the government realises big changes need to be made to tackle climate change.
In December, Panorama's Comeback Coal visited a in Germany. is testing the as yet unproved technology which aims to make fossil fuel environmentally friendly.
The programme examined the growing push by mining companies to obtain permission to create new opencast mines in Britain despite the government calling the huge excavations of opencast mines "too high a price to pay" in environmental terms when it first came to power.
But found that Whitehall's views had changed and, in 2007, no opencast applications were rejected, while 14 were approved, compared with just four in 2005.
The ongoing security situation in Northern Ireland was back in the news last week with the dire warning that Deputy First Minister , the Sinn Fein MP, was the subject of death threats from dissident nationalists.
Panorama has been investigating the breakaway republican movements, their aims, roots and tactics, for 10 years which informed .
Darragh MacIntyre's report came just three weeks after . At the time reacted quickly, calling for a united front against the threat of violence.
Panorama found the same message when we and spoke to some of the children there.
