A fresh spate of reshuffle stories that the Paymaster-General Geoffrey Robinson was to be moved from the Treasury

A fresh spate of reshuffle stories that the Paymaster-General, Geoffrey Robinson, was to be moved from the Treasury to become the transport minister were dismissed as the "junk food of political journalism" by the Prime Minister's official spokesman. "Only one person knows when and if there will be a reshuffle, with a small number of people to whom he may or may not have indicated his thoughts They do not include anyone who spoke to the press. The requirement was one of a package of conditions laid down by the Anglo-French Intergovernmental Commission - which regulates tunnel safety - before it would allow lorries through again The request was turned down. In the fire, smoke from a blazing lorry engulfed the club car, nearly choking those inside before they were rescued.. "JUNK FOOD" was fed to newspapers about Tony Blair's next reshuffle in an attempt to stop businessmen being put off from taking on ministerial roles in the Blair government, Whitehall sources said last night. that have not yet pinpointed the perpetrator or perpetrators."New safety standards were set after the fire exposed shortcomings in procedures. Eurotunnel wanted less intervention from health and safety authorities, but the fire made this more difficult to argue.In January the company requested that limits on the number of lorries it can carry on its HGV trains to be lifted.

The conclusion that foul play was the cause was made in an expert's report sent last week to the French judge heading the inquiry into the fire in November 1996. Eurotunnel ran a restricted service after the fire, losing millions of pounds.Gerald Lesigne, prosecutor in charge of the case, said: "The judge has ordered a number of investigations ... "A new Welsh-only system will be installed at no extra cost to us. This time we hope it will fully understand the language," he said.. Eurotunnel last night confirmed that the 1996 Channel Tunnel fire, which caused pounds 200m damage, was deliberate. Its lawyers had received information from the investigating judge that any "accidental causes linked to the equipment and installations have been ruled out by the experts This makes a malicious act the most likely cause". Patrick Ponsolle, Eurotunnel chairman, said the conclusions did not surprise him; the company maintained its legal claim against "those responsible".

The fire, on a lorry on a Shuttle wagon, shut one of the two tracks and disrupted passenger and freight traffic for months. Five wagons and 15 lorries were destroyed by the blaze, which also put eight drivers in hospital. For example, the Welsh word for "bridge" can be either "bont" or "pont". "Kitchen" translates as "cegin" or "gegin".Asked to perform simple tasks the screen goes blank and journalists preparing Welsh language material for Radio Cymru go back to first principles with biros and sheets of A4.BBC Wales spokesman Huw Rossiter explained that although the system was designed to be bilingual it was not up to speed because it failed to recognise words used in everyday speech. But the way some Welsh words mutate in different contexts is proving too much for it to cope with. Defeated by quirks of Welsh, a language spoken by one in five of Wales's 2.6 million people, the pounds 4m box of tricks, bought from the United States, is scratching its chips with bafflement and working to rule. The super-fast system was programmed with what was thought to be a full Welsh vocabulary. TECHNOLOGY has hit the linguistic buffers at BBC Wales's Cardiff headquarters where a new computer is refusing to understand "the language of heaven", writes Tony Heath.

A new directive will support this trend and encourage other zoos to follow suit."Mr Meacher added: "At present there is evidence of poor standards at too many zoos in Europe.". "Zoos have a vital role to play in conservation work," he said."Some 230 zoos in the Community are involved in programmes of action to conserve 150 endangered species - ranging from the European otter to the Siberian tiger. Germany argues that a strong but non-binding EU "recommendation" on zoos would be preferable to a binding but weak directive.Michael Meacher, the environment minister, stressed that a network of zoos throughout the Community could achieve more in conservation terms than individual zoos acting alone. They suggested that an effective piece of EU legislation might have to be put off until after the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty which at Britain's insistence has a protocol on animal welfare. Polar bears and big cats were found in surroundings so small and spartan that they were reduced to a psychotic state, just pacing about.EU officials said the British initiative had "moved zoos up the agenda", but stressed that the very strong political resistance of the Germans would be difficult to overcome. It cites Basildon Zoo in Essex as failing to meet even "middle-ground expectations" for standards of welfare and says that the elephant enclosure at London Zoo is "appalling".Another survey, by the Born Free Foundation, also reported untreated animals, including an elephant in a Spanish zoo with a wound "as big as a chopping board", and elderly animals which could barely stand up. Even so, the RSPCA has found cases of mistreatment in these countries.Ministers insist that Britain's zoos are "okay", but the campaigning group Zoocheck says there are at least "half a dozen bad ones" and distressed animals even in the better ones.

The RSPCA singled out Rome Zoo, the Parc Zoologique and the Menagerie des Jardins Plantes in Paris, and Limburgse Zoo in Genk, Belgium, as particularly bad.Only a handful of member states, including Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, have laws which are enforced. Cases included an elephant needing hospital treatment in Germany, a tiger dragging its back feet in Italy, a lioness unable to stand in Belgium, hippos unable to submerge themselves in water in Spain and oryx stressed by being placed opposite a lion enclosure in France. Germany, the Netherlands and Greece would not even agree to a broad directive, saying zoo rules are better left to the nation state.There are more than 1,000 zoos in the 15 EU member states and, according to a recent report by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, many of them are housing distressed animals who are living in cramped conditions and are deprived of medical attention even when they are obviously ill.An RSPCA undercover investigation of Continental zoos found many animals in a "very distressed state". Angela Eagle, a junior environment minister, insisted that voluntary agreements are inadequate to tackle the problem of maltreatment - which exists even at supposedly reputable zoos. While there was wide support in principle for an umbrella directive, European ministers were keen that the detail of how to run zoos should be left to national governments.