// ----- set mb_http_output encoding to UTF-8 ----- 
mb_http_output('UTF-8'); 
// ----- setup php for working with Unicode data ----- 
mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');
mb_http_output('UTF-8');
mb_http_input('UTF-8');
mb_language('uni');
mb_regex_encoding('UTF-8');
ob_start('mb_output_handler');
// ---------------