It took a while, but this all eventually worked. The problem was almost certainly the single apostrophe, which I hadn't noticed. The code I'm using now reads:

my $sth = $db->prepare("insert into news(url, header, country, country
+2, date, priority, userid, source, formoreinfo, language, regreqd, ke
+ywords, image, actnowcampaigncode, state) values(?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,
+?,?,?,?,?)");

foreach $record (@records) {
    $n++;
    &splitupintofields;
    if ($priority > 0) {
        $y++;
        &convdate;
        &convlang;
        $sth->execute($url, $header, $country1, $country2, $date, $pri
+ority, $correspondent, $source, $formoreinfo, $language, $regreqd, $k
+eywords, $image, $actnowcampaigncode, $state);
        }
    }
    
$db->disconnect();
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