question about msgfmt and po files

[mike <mike redtux demon co uk>]

Lately on various sporadic packages I am getting fatal build errors on
po files

an example from gnome-vfs

/usr/bin/msgfmt: he.po: warning: Charset missing in
header.                                  Message conversion to user's
charset will not work. he.po:11:2: parse error he.po:11: keyword "he"
unknown he.po:27: keyword "he" unknown
he.po:315:2: parse error he.po:315: keyword "he" unknown he.po:322:2:
parse error he.po:331:2: parse error he.po:433:2: parse error
he.po:433: keyword "he" unknown
he.po:435: duplicate message definition he.po:325: ...this is the
location of the first definition he.po:437:2: parse error
/error                                                       
1445,19       34%

anyone any idea where the problem could lie?

Changing LANG variable does not seem to matter