fopen() problems

I just finished the installation. I get numerous error messages in the dashboard with the same content:

Warning: fopen(http://api.wordpress.org/core/browse-happy/1.0/) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/vol12/byethost2.com/b2_10090327/htdocs/wp-includes/class-http.php on line 877

the code in question is:

if ( !WP_DEBUG )
$handle = @fopen($url, ‘r’, false, $context);
else
$handle = fopen($url, ‘r’, false, $context);

(last line is the 877

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
B