Index: includes/locale.inc
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/drupal/drupal/includes/locale.inc,v
retrieving revision 1.157
diff -u -p -r1.157 locale.inc
--- includes/locale.inc	11 Nov 2007 16:14:45 -0000	1.157
+++ includes/locale.inc	18 Nov 2007 21:36:11 -0000
@@ -1015,6 +1015,10 @@ function _locale_import_read_po($op, $fi
 
   while (!feof($fd)) {
     $line = fgets($fd, 10*1024); // A line should not be this long
+    if ($lineno == 0) {
+      // The first line might come with a UTF-8 BOM, which should be removed. 
+      $line = str_replace("\xEF\xBB\xBF", '', $line);
+    }
     $lineno++;
     $line = trim(strtr($line, array("\\\n" => "")));