php rss feed character encoding multilingual feed items

I've created an rss feed for a website, but it has 2 languages - Greek and English.Everything works fine except the rss feed when an item has a title written in Greek.

So I though ok I must change the encoding before parsing the string. I failed 100%.

I have tried every encoding function php provides: iconv, ut8_encode, mb_convert_encoding also mb_detect_encoding strict and not. I also used html entities, but nothing seems to work

The source code generating the rss is this:

function construct_rss($results, $cat = null){    if($results == false)    {        exit;    }    header('Content-Type: application/rss+xml charset=UTF-8');    $rssfeed = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>';    $rssfeed .= '<rss version="2.0">';    $rssfeed .= '<channel>';    $rssfeed .= '<title>domain.com RSS feed</title>';    $rssfeed .= '<link>http://www.domain.com</link>';    if($cat == null)    {        $rssfeed .= '<description>Upcoming events</description>';    }    else    {        $rssfeed .= '<description>Upcoming events - ' . $cat . '</description>';    }    $rssfeed .= '<language>en-us</language>';    $rssfeed .= '<copyright>Copyright (C) 2012 domain.com</copyright>';    foreach ($results as $key => $event)     {        $exp = explode(',',$event['vName']);        $vName = $exp[0];         $rssfeed .= '<item>';        $rssfeed .= '<title>' . $event['eTitle'] . ' @ ' . $vName . '</title>';        $rssfeed .= '<description>' . htmlentities('<a href="http://www.domain.com/event.php?eid=' . $event['id'] .'"><img WIDTH="150" HEIGHT="220" style="width:150px;height:220px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-right:10px;" src="http://'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].'/image.php?source='.urlencode('events/'.$event['folder'].'/images/default/' . $event['file_1']).'&w=150&h=220&out=raw"></a>' . '<p>' . $event['eDescr'] . '</div>') . '</description>';        $rssfeed .= '<link>http://www.'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'].'/events/' . urlencode($event['eCategory']) . '/' .urlencode($event['url']). '</link>';        $rssfeed .= '<pubDate>' . date("D, d M Y H:i:s O", strtotime($event['dStart'] . '' . $event['tStart'])) . '</pubDate>';        $rssfeed .= '</item>';    }    $rssfeed .= '</channel>';    $rssfeed .= '</rss>';    echo $rssfeed;}

And here is a raw output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>domain.com RSS feed</title><link>http://www.domai.com</link><description>Upcoming events</description><language>en-us</language><copyright>Copyright (C) 2012 domain.com</copyright><item><title>ΕΙΣΒΟΛΕΑΣ& EVERSOR - O μÏθοςκαταÏÏέει @ Gagarin 205 Live Music Space</title><description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.domain.com/event.php?eid=209&quot;&gt;&lt;img WIDTH=&quot;150&quot; HEIGHT=&quot;220&quot; style=&quot;width:150px;height:220px;padding-bottom:10px;padding-right:10px;&quot; src=&quot;http://www.comain.com/image.php?source=events%2F985d6bfa8e35df69471b1ecdb9ed187e%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2Feisvo.jpg&amp;w=150&amp;h=220&amp;out=raw&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Iota;&amp;Sigma;&amp;Beta;&amp;Omicron;&amp;Lambda;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Sigma; &amp;amp; EVERSOR - &quot;&amp;Omicron; &amp;Mu;&amp;Upsilon;&amp;Theta;&amp;Omicron;&amp;Sigma; &amp;Kappa;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Tau;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Rho;&amp;Rho;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Epsilon;&amp;Iota;&quot; TOUR LIVE @ &amp;Alpha;&amp;Theta;&amp;Eta;&amp;Nu;&amp;Alpha; (GAGARIN205), &amp;Sigma;&amp;Alpha;&amp;Beta; 22/12&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;doors open: 20.00&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;ticket price: 10e&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;guests: 12os Pithikos &amp;amp; Hatemost&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot; /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;&quot;&gt;opening: Gelws&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://www.www.domain.com/events/Hip-Hop+Rap/%CE%95%CE%99%CE%A3%CE%92%CE%9F%CE%9B%CE%95%CE%91%CE%A3-EVERSOR-%CE%9F-%CE%9C%CE%A5%CE%98%CE%9F%CE%A3-%CE%9A%CE%91%CE%A4%CE%91%CE%A1%CE%A1%CE%95%CE%95%CE%99-0</link><pubDate>Sat, 22 Dec 2012 20:00:00 +0200</pubDate></item></channel></rss>

As you can see the problem is at the item's title.

If anyone could point to a direction or something because I can't figure this one out. I thought by converting $event['eTitle'] encoding it would work but no luck.

EDIT: stored in db as TEXT utf8_general_ci

EDIT 2: this seems to work ->

utf8_encode(htmlentities($event['eTitle'],ENT_COMPAT,'utf-8'))

but on W3C validator I get this error: column 268: XML parsing error: :1:268: undefined entity

and here Is the highlighted section:

EVERSOR - O μÃ\x8fÂ\x8dθ

\x8f and \x8d cause this error. But why?