font problem from emacs 23.3 to 23.4???

[rusi]

I have this (quite fragile :-) ) elisp code for running APL under
emacs
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AplInDebian

I just discovered that the fonts are not working in the new setup but
still working in the old
That is I can type in inferior APL in the old
     a ← 2 3 ⍴ ⍳ 6

 and it works

     a
 0 1 2
 3 4 5

It still works in the new but now the ← shows as a box
Also describe-char works on the old but breaks on the new giving

get-char-code-property: Args out of range: [Cc Zs Po Sc Ps Pe Sm Pd Nd
Lu ...], 135

New emacs 23.4.1
Old emacs 23.3.1

I am not sure its an emacs issue or gnome issue whose version is also
different.