CentOS: Problems updating python

I have been running into the same problem while trying to update my 5.3 CentOS machine.

Yum reported three packages that needed update :

 java-1.6.0-openjdk     x86_64     1:1.6.0.0-1.2.b09.el5      updates      27 M
 libxml2-python         x86_64     2.6.26-2.1.2.8             updates     713 k
 python                 x86_64     2.4.3-24.el5_3.6           updates     5.9 M

When yum update was issued however, the same error message kept popping up.

--> Missing Dependency: /usr/lib64/python2.4 is needed by package
libxslt-python-1.1.17-2.el5_2.2.x86_64 (installed)

I tried disabling almost all my repositories, I removed many packages, almost ended up un-installing half my entire and then I googled on it. As always,, the answer was right there in front of me. Frank Cox wrote on the CentOS mailing list:

yum clean all
yum update

And that works. Thank you Frank.