unicode chars break abstract

After importing endnote 9.0 xml file, most text fields come out OK but unicode characters (specifically č ć š đ) which display OK in endnote just break the abstract, i.e. the abstract just stops at the character before the special char.
Errors: I am getting errors for http://www.promente.org/en/biblio/rss.xml like these in the drupal logs:
Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/.../modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.module on line 1428.

and

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1 query: SELECT n.nid, n.vid, n.type, n.status, n.created, n.changed, n.comment, n.promote, n.sticky, r.timestamp AS revision_timestamp, r.title, r.body, r.teaser, r.log, r.format, u.uid, u.name, u.picture, u.data FROM drupalnode n INNER JOIN drupalusers u ON u.uid = n.uid INNER JOIN drupalnode_revisions r ON r.vid = n.vid WHERE in /home/....//promente.net/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 172.

and

implode() [function.implode]: Bad arguments. in /home/.../promente.net/modules/node/node.module on line 508.

Any ideas?