Description of problem: when starting 'yum update -y' yum crashes with an error message:

fedora/primary_db                 | 8.4 MB   00:02   
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in <module>
    yummain.user_main(sys.argv[1:], exit_code=True)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 309, in user_main
    errcode = main(args)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 178, in main
    result, resultmsgs = base.doCommands()
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 348, in doCommands
    self._getTs(needTsRemove)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/depsolve.py", line 101, in _getTs
    self._getTsInfo(remove_only)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/depsolve.py", line 112, in _getTsInfo
    pkgSack = self.pkgSack
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 649, in <lambda>
    pkgSack = property(fget=lambda self: self._getSacks(),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 491, in _getSacks
    self.repos.populateSack(which=repos)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/repos.py", line 260, in populateSack
    sack.populate(repo, mdtype, callback, cacheonly)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 162, in populate
    if self._check_db_version(repo, mydbtype):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 220, in _check_db_version
    return repo._check_db_version(mdtype)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1178, in _check_db_version
    repoXML = self.repoXML
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1342, in <lambda>
    repoXML = property(fget=lambda self: self._getRepoXML(),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1334, in _getRepoXML
    self._loadRepoXML(text=self)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1324, in _loadRepoXML
    return self._groupLoadRepoXML(text, ["primary"])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1307, in _groupLoadRepoXML
    if self._commonLoadRepoXML(text):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1153, in _commonLoadRepoXML
    result = self._getFileRepoXML(local, text)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 934, in _getFileRepoXML
    cache=self.http_caching == 'all')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 770, in _getFile
    result = self.grab.urlgrab(misc.to_utf8(relative), local,
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 496, in <lambda>
    grab = property(lambda self: self._getgrab())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 491, in _getgrab
    self._setupGrab()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 480, in _setupGrab
    self._grab = mgclass(self._grabfunc, self.urls,
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 628, in <lambda>
    urls = property(fget=lambda self: self._geturls(),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 625, in _geturls
    self._baseurlSetup()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 582, in _baseurlSetup
    mirrorurls.extend(self._getMirrorList())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 1581, in _getMirrorList
    print "Could not retrieve mirrorlist %s error was\n%s" % (url, e)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/codecs.py", line 351, in write
    data, consumed = self.encode(object, self.errors)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 161: ordinal not in range(128)


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

yum-3.2.23-3.fc11.noarch
yum-metadata-parser-1.1.2-12.fc11.i586
yum-presto-0.4.5-4.fc11.noarch
yum-utils-1.1.22-1.fc11.noarch

How reproducible:
Just start with the above command

Additional info: This behaviour yum appears to show on a i386 machine (which runs Fedora beginning from FC4). On all my x86_64 it runs smoothly.