curses header conflict (wchar_t,wint_t)

When trying to install python2.3 on either stable or current the python 
curses module doesn't build. I get the following compiler complaints:

STABLE (line numbers in brackets are from CURRENT)

/usr/include/ncurses.h:236(289): conflicting types for `wchar_t'
/usr/include/stdlib.h:58(57): previous declaration of `wchar_t'
/usr/include/ncurses.h:239(292): conflicting types for `wint_t'
/usr/include/wchar.h:89(96): previous declaration of `wint_t'

Can somebody tell me the story of _WCHAR_T and _BSD_WCHAR_T, or tell me
where I can find some hints?

I found several long threads on seemingly related problems but
haven't been enlightened yet. 

(One drastic fix is to remove the relevant lines from ncurses.h 
while building python.)

- Till