#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);
use LWP::UserAgent;

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $req = POST 'http://www.booksforeducation.com/testbed/fred.php', [ XML => $last, ];

my $response = $ua->request( $req )->as_string;
print $resposne; # That's the output from your php script...