I have a mediocre solution for this. Enter visual mode, highlight the chars in question. Enter command mode..
:%s/$action//g
where it says $action, paste, middle click- on linux.
I know that either in visual or insert, hihghlighting will NOT work on these characters.
I think all this happens because of ASCII / UTF8 conversion.. Again, I my 'solution' is mediocre, but it should help you look into it deeper if you so desire.