LITERALLY LOST: 35

How to cut an environmental dash in France this summer - a sprinkling of useful eco-words and phrases from Lonely Planet's French Phrasebook (pounds 3.99):

THE ENGLISH Channel, the busiest waterway in the world, could become an accident blackspot because the shipping industry has not woken up to the "millennium bug".

A decision on whether to go ahead with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is expected to be taken by the Government early next month following the submission of final revised rescue proposals from the project's developer, London & Continental Railways, in partnership with Railtrack

More steps up the war of words in its effort to rebuff a bid from its French arch-rival. Christine Harper reports

Marine ecotourism

"The globalisation of television is underway!" the BBC's director- general John Birt declared, just after he had committed the commercial arm of the Corporation, BBC Worldwide Ltd, to an alliance with Discovery Communications Inc. The agreement will create, both parties proudly boast, "the greatest global force in factual broadcasting".

Hoverspeed restarts ferry route in Holyman deal

Britain will be sidelined in Europe on "a rusty branch line from Brussels" if the high speed Channel Tunnel rail link is not built, a conference was told today.

Advice from The Gambia Experience (01703 730888) on how to avoid hustling.

Norwich is an unlikely candidate for centre of cool. Yet the city which gave us `Sale of the Century' and Alan Partridge is back on the media map thanks, writes Meg Carter, to it being home to Rapture - Britain's first cable channel dedicated to teen TV.

HMS Illustrious will arrive in the Gulf next week, amid growing tension, as Saddam Hussein continues to defy the United Nations. Before she left, the ship took part in a mock battle in the Channel to prepare for her deployment. Ian Burrell joined Armed Forces minister John Reid at sea as he viewed the exercise.

British people tend to think they and the Americans are pretty much the same. They watch Friends and Boogie Nights and conclude that American society and institutions are broadly similar. It is a belief that has promoted and in turn been pushed by Euro-scepticism - it often seemed that Thatcherites saw Britain as the 51st state in waiting. Truth is, however, that the modern United States is profoundly different from Britain, and was before last 1 May. It is different not just in terms of ethnic mix and age structure or criminal justice, homicide or social security but decidedly different in the ways of its politics and law. The Clinton affair demonstrates the point: the dominance of lawyers is not a professional conspiracy but a manifestation of the American individualist rights-based culture where (Mrs Clinton was right about this) politics is regularly pursued through action in the court room.

Thirty-two sailors were rescued last night after a listing cargo ship was abandoned in the English Channel.