If the first child element of a fo:block is a white-space fo character a NullPointerException is thrown. I analyzed the code and the problem seems to be that the currentTextNode instance variable of FObjMixed is not reset (to null or the following sibling) after the Character object has been removed (due to white space handling).
Created attachment 26805 [details] Testcase
Created attachment 26806 [details] Patch
Fixed in r1088242. See: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?rev=1088242&view=rev Thanks for the patch!
batch transition to closed; if someone wishes to restore one of these to resolved in order to perform a verification step, then feel free to do so