MKL FATAL ERROR /path/to/libmkl_def.so: undefined symbol: i_free

I started fooling around with python/scipy with the intention of replacing ruby/gsl. Came across this very weird error.

Minimal script to reproduce: invoke ipython -pylab, then in it,

In [1]: from scipy import *

In [2]: a=zeros(1000); a[:100] = 1; b = fft(a)

In [3]: plot(abs(b))

and ipython spits out the titled error.

Found a solution here: before running ipython,
export LD_PRELOAD=/opt/intel/mkl/10.0.5.025/lib/32/libmkl_core.so

apparently, some symbols are defined in libmkl_core.so instead of libmkl_def.so.