' instead of '

&#39 ≡ U+0027 ≡ `'` in ASCII and should be present in any non-ideographic font.

What happens on other sites? What is your character encoding set to? Have you tried using galeon or opera?

' is the HTML code for '

Check your iGoogle configuration. Did you install a theme?

As for Thunderbird, you might have HTML enabled. Change it to Text mode.

Yes I did install a theme in iGoogle.

In Thunderbird, I do not have the problem in all emails.....just ones from the FT.

I do not want to use a browser other than FF for various reasons.
Fonts are set for Western (ISO 8859 15) and either serif or sans serif

The problem only happens on one of the news boxes in iGoogle - Google News New Zealand.

FT ???

I have my fonts set to Western, as you have, and monospace.

The Default Character Encoding is Western (ISO-8859-1). Try changing it from your 15 to my 1.

"Allow pages to choose their own fonts ..." is ticked.

Sorry, FT = Financial Times

1 or 15 makes no difference

Allow pages to choose their own fonts makes no difference...

The only reasons for this strange occurrence I can come up with are interference caused by:

1. The theme you installed in iGoogle.
2. A plugin in Firefox.
3. A bug in both Firefox and Thunderbird.

My first course of action would be to deactivate the installed theme and reboot.

I have found nothing on the web that resembles the problem that you describe although some oddities with HTML code appearing have been noted. Nothing, however, concerning only one symbol.

I am aware that you have stated a preference to use Firefox as your browser, however, for diagnostic purposes, it may be worthwhile installing other browsers to see if the display of the HTML character persists.

Buz Corey suggested Galeon and Opera. As well as these, there are several others that can easily be installed via Add/Remove (accessible from the Applications menu) and just as easily removed if no longer required.