after upgrade passwd command not working

[maindoor]

After a complete update on the bugfixes on 3 dec 2009, passwd command is not working.
it says:
passwd: Authentication token manipulation error
passwd: password unchanged

ran it with strace, and here is the output:
fstat64(4, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=1471, ...}) = 0
mmap2(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0xb7784000
read(4, "root:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash\n"..., 4096) = 1471
close(4) = 0
munmap(0xb7784000, 4096) = 0
open("/usr/share/locale/en_US.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en_US.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en/LC_MESSAGES/Linux-PAM.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en_US.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en_US.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/share/locale-langpack/en/LC_MESSAGES/shadow.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
write(2, "passwd: Authentication token man"..., 48passwd: Authentication token manipulation error
) = 48
write(2, "passwd: password unchanged\n", 27passwd: password unchanged
) = 27
munmap(0x5da000, 86884) = 0
munmap(0x19e000, 107008) = 0
munmap(0x6d4000, 201052) = 0
munmap(0x110000, 8212) = 0
munmap(0xd24000, 8220) = 0
munmap(0xf97000, 41256) = 0
munmap(0xbc4000, 12404) = 0
munmap(0xd62000, 16488) = 0
munmap(0xcdc000, 230212) = 0
exit_group(10) = ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
output of locale command is :
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=


what is going on ? any idea ? why so bad after
an upgrade.