Unable to activate satellite certificate and sync channel, fails with '..undefined symbol: XML_SetSkippedEntityHandler'

Issue

• rhn-satellite-activate fails with error "ImportError: ... undefined symbol: XML_SetSkippedEntityHandler"

  # rhn-satellite-activate --rhn-cert=//etc/sysconfig/rhn/rhn-entitlement-cert.xml
  RHN_PARENT: satellite.rhn.redhat.com
  
  ERROR: unhandled exception occurred:
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/bin/rhn-satellite-activate", line 45, in ?
      sys.exit(abs(mod.main() or 0))
    File "/usr/share/rhn/satellite_tools/rhn_satellite_activate.py", line 561, in main
      date = expiredYN(options.rhn_cert)
    File "/usr/share/rhn/satellite_tools/rhn_satellite_activate.py", line 441, in expiredYN
      sc.load(cert)
    File "/usr/share/rhn/server/rhnServer/satellite_cert.py", line 134, in load
      self._load(s)
    File "/usr/share/rhn/server/rhnServer/satellite_cert.py", line 146, in _load
      dom_element = parseString(s)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_xmlplus/dom/minidom.py", line 1924, in parseString
      from xml.dom import expatbuilder
    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_xmlplus/dom/expatbuilder.py", line 32, in ?
      from xml.parsers import expat
    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_xmlplus/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in ?
      from pyexpat import *
  ImportError: /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_xmlplus/parsers/pyexpat.so: undefined symbol: XML_SetSkippedEntityHandler
  

• satellite-sync fails with :

  # satellite-sync -l
  +++ sending log as an email +++
  
  SYNC ERROR: unhandled exception occurred:
  
  (Check logs/email for potentially more detail)
  
  'xml.sax.drivers2.drv_pyexpat'
  
  Exception exceptions.AttributeError: "ContainerHandler instance has no attribute 'handler'" in <bound method ContainerHandler.__del__ of <satellite_tools.sync_handlers.ContainerHandler instance at 0x95d482c>> ignored
  Exception exceptions.AttributeError: "Syncer instance has no attribute 'containerHandler'" in <bound method Syncer.__del__ of <satellite_tools.satsync.Syncer instance at 0x95a98ec>> ignored