"UnicodeDecodeError" on today's smart update/upgrade/commit

[snowcrash+smart]

i've smart,

   0.49.1-40.guru.suse102 at i686

installed on a number of opensuse 10.2 boxes.  no problems for quite awhile.

today, on all the boxes, on attemtpting to commit an update/upgrade
(which fails), i see

smart> commit

Upgrading packages (19):
  MozillaFirefox-2.0.0.1-16.1 at i586
sax2-8.1-83.2 at i586
  MozillaThunderbird-1.99.1-44.1 at i586
sax2-gui-8.1-83.2 at i586
  cups-1.2.7-3.3 at i586
sax2-ident-8.1-83.2 at i586
  cups-client-1.2.7-3.3 at i586
sax2-libsax-8.1-83.2 at i586
  cups-devel-1.2.7-3.3 at i586
sax2-libsax-perl-8.1-83.2 at i586
  cups-libs-1.2.7-3.3 at i586
sax2-tools-8.1-83.2 at i586
  k3b-0.99.1.0rc4-100.pm.1 at i586
w3m-0.5.1-41.2 at i586
  krb5-1.5.1-23.2 at i586
wine-snapshot-0.9.29.20070110-12.1 at i586
  libetpan-0.49-0.pm.0 at i586
yast2-sudo-2.14.3-0.1 at noarch
  lvm2-2.02.13-10.2 at i586

43.7MB of package files are needed. 6.6MB will be freed.

Confirm changes? (Y/n): y


Committing transaction...
warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID f9558872
Trying to import the key bfb4e362f9558872 from subkeys.pgp.net...
gpg: requesting key F9558872 from hkp server subkeys.pgp.net
gpg: key F9558872: "Marcus Huewe (RPM signing key)
<marcus at links2linux.de>" not changed
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:              unchanged: 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/smart", line 194, in <module>
    main(sys.argv[1:])
  File "/usr/bin/smart", line 167, in main
    exitcode = iface.run(opts.command, opts.argv)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/interfaces/text/interactive.py",
line 46, in run
    Interpreter(self._ctrl).cmdloop()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/cmd.py", line 142, in cmdloop
    stop = self.onecmd(line)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/interfaces/text/interactive.py",
line 195, in onecmd
    return Cmd.onecmd(self, line)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/cmd.py", line 219, in onecmd
    return func(arg)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/interfaces/text/interactive.py",
line 516, in do_commit
    if self._ctrl.commitTransaction(transaction):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/control.py", line 502,
in commitTransaction
    return self.commitChangeSet(trans.getChangeSet(), caching, confirm)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/control.py", line 560,
in commitChangeSet
    pmclass().commit(pmcs, pkgpaths)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/backends/rpm/pm.py",
line 202, in commit
    if iface.askYesNo(popen_out, False):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/smart/interfaces/text/interface.py",
line 65, in askYesNo
    res = raw_input(mask % question).strip().lower()
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position
432: ordinal not in range(128)


note quite sure what to do about that.  it _looks_ like a problem
with, or getting, a key?

suggestions?

thanks.