MySQL Java international character(UTF-8) encoding
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I am trying to insert some data into mysql DB via Java JDBC that contains some International characters. 

    INSERT INTO my_table (`name`, `lat`, `long`, `label`) VALUES('Ädelfors folkhögskola', '57.43611145019531', '15.19722175598145', 'Ädelfors folkhögskola')

This query works perfectly fine if i use it directly from mysqlworkbench, phpmyadmin, etc
but when i try with java JDBC the international characters are completely garbled

    Ädelfors folkhögskola =>  ?��delfors folkh??gskola

the solutions i have tried till now include 

    jdbc:mysql://server/database?characterEncoding=UTF-8

    Setting - Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
    Both my database and table are encoded as utf8 - default collation

this is the dump of `"show variables like '%char%'"`

    character_set_client - utf8
`character_set_connection - utf8`

`character_set_database - utf8`

`character_set_filesystem - binary`

`character_set_results - utf8`

`character_set_server - latin1`

`character_set_system - utf8`

`character_sets_dir - /usr/share/mysql/charsets/`


I have tried using both preparesStatements as well as normal Statement

I know there are many similar questions and i have referred most of them but could find a solution.


Some info about environment...
OS - Mac osx 10.6.8
IDE - netbeans

mysql 5.5.23 running on ubuntu
