cpan doesn't work after etch upgrade

["Dennis G. Wicks" <wix@eskimo.com>]

Greetings,

I just did an upgrade on etch and got perl 5.8.8 and when
I do cpan -v I get

	/usr/local/bin/cpan script version 1.9,
		CPAN.pm version 1.9102

When I try to run cpan by any method, ie. either just  cpan
or   perl -MCPAN -e shell

I get the following:

- - - - - - - - - - - -

CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.16)
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v2.036)
CPAN: Time::HiRes loaded ok (v1.9707)
Fetching with LWP:

ftp://cpan.netnitco.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
LWP failed with code[500] message[Can't locate object method
"configure" via package "Net::HTTP"]
CPAN: Net::FTP loaded ok (v2.77)
Fetching with Net::FTP:

ftp://cpan.netnitco.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
Catching error: 'Can't locate object method "new" via
package "Net::FTP" at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/Net/FTP.pm
line 74.
' at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 274
        CPAN::shell() called at -e line 1
Fetching with LWP:

ftp://cpan.netnitco.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
LWP failed with code[500] message[Can't locate object method
"configure" via package "Net::HTTP"]
Fetching with Net::FTP:

ftp://cpan.netnitco.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
Lockfile removed.
Can't locate object method "new" via package "Net::FTP" at
/usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/Net/FTP.pm line 74.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have tried rebuilding the config file and that didn't help.

I tried installing some of the modules it was having
problems with but can't do that either. Same result.

Any ideas how to get out of this "Catch 22"?

Many TIA!
Dennis