Character Encoding (UTF-8) in PERL

Hello list,
we have used Debian (3.1) Sarge for almost 2 years on our serverand everyth=
ing=20
was encoded in UTF-8.

When Debain Etch (4.0) came out we read that everything in Etch now default=
s=20
to UTF-8 character encoding so we decided to upgrade from from Sarge to Etc=
h.

Sarge
=3D=3D=3D=3D
Kernel 2.4.27
Apache 2.0.54
mysql 4.0.24=20
Perl 5.8.4

Etch
=3D=3D=3D=3D
Kernel 2.6.18
Apache 2.2.3
mysql 5.0.32
Perl 5.8.8

Unfortunately after the upgrade the character encoding on our website was=20
messed up and it looks like the reason for that is PERL.

The operating system and Apache seem to use UTF-8. So, that's good!

In mysql everything looks fine, too:
mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE "character_set_%";
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0| Value =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0|
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client =A0 =A0 | utf8 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 |
| character_set_connection | utf8 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 |
| character_set_database =A0 | utf8 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0=
 =A0 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0=
 |
| character_set_results =A0 =A0| utf8 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 |
| character_set_server =A0 =A0 | utf8 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 |
| character_set_system =A0 =A0 | utf8 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 |
| character_sets_dir =A0 =A0 =A0 | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+

However a PERL script with dbh->do(SHOW VARIABLES LIKE "character_set_%");=
=20
returns:
character_set_client =A0 =A0 =A0latin1
character_set_connection =A0latin1
character_set_database =A0 =A0utf8
character_set_filesystem =A0binary
character_set_results =A0 =A0 latin1
character_set_server =A0 =A0 =A0utf8
character_set_system =A0 =A0 =A0utf8
character_sets_dir =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0/usr/share/mysql/charsets/

How can we tell PERL to use UTF-8 as default encoding?

Thanks
=2D-=20
Best regards,
Oliver K=F6nig