I think I've found the problem.

In configure:

  13830 if test "${ac_cv_lib_intl_textdomain+set}" = set; then
  13831   echo $ECHO_N "(cached) $ECHO_C" >&6
  13832 else
  13833   ac_check_lib_save_LIBS=$LIBS
  13834 LIBS="-lintl  $LIBS"

but then 

  13883 rm -f core conftest.err conftest.$ac_objext
conftest_ipa8_conftest.oo \
  13884       conftest$ac_exeext conftest.$ac_ext
  13885 LIBS=$ac_check_lib_save_LIBS

ac_check_lib_save_LIBS is assigned before -lintl is added to LIBS, and
then LIBS is unconditionally re-assigned to ac_check_lib_save_LIBS a
little bit further down, which then doesn't have -lintl in it.

I've included a patch that changes this to be:

  ...

  13880         ac_cv_lib_intl_textdomain=no
  13881         LIBS=$ac_check_lib_save_LIBS
  13882 fi
  13883 
  13884 rm -f core conftest.err conftest.$ac_objext
conftest_ipa8_conftest.oo \
  13885       conftest$ac_exeext conftest.$ac_ext
  13886 fi

So that LIBS is only restored to the saved state if the check fails.

I'm not sure if mucking with the configure file directly is a great
idea, but this was the simplest thing I could think of that would work.