[xsl] Testing for special characters

["Graeme Kidd" <coolkidd3@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I have used  Adobe Acrobat to export a PDF as XML and I am wanting to 
convert it.
Sometime it displays an unordered list like this:

<Sect>
   <P>List: </P>
   <P>Item 1; </P>
   <P>. </P>
   <P>Item 2; </P>
   <P>. </P>
   <P>Item 3; </P>
   <P>. </P>
</Sect>

Which I am trying to convert to this:

<Sect>
   <P>List:</P>
   <UL>
       <LI>Item 1; </LI>
       <LI>Item 2; </LI>
       <LI>Item 3; </LI>
   </UL>
</Sect>

The best I can think of is to check if there is a bullet point then use the 
previous <P> node.  At the moment I am having trouble just checking if there 
is a bullet point as this doesn't seem to work:
<xsl:if test="P='. '">

I am thinking it might be because it is a special character. I have tried 
specifying the output as UTF-8
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" encoding="UTF-8" />

But that didn't seem to help, so does anyone else have any ideas?
Thanks