problem loading xpm on japanese windows

[Bernhard Rumpler tttech com]

Hi, 

I have a problem when loading an xpm on a japanese windows xp machine:

Internal error: Image loader module 'xpm' failed to begin loading an 
image, but didn't give a reason for the failure (.\-Images\hourglass.xpm)

Interestingly, the same installation works well on english and german 
win32 machines and  the (python) application also works on linux 
(english). Loading other image formats (e.g., png) works well. Could this 
probably be an encoding problem, e.g., different default enconding for 
.xpm-files on a japanese machine?

Any hints on what could be the problem are greatly appreciated.

thanks,
Bernhard