tight on "worldfocus" -- >> iranian poce fired tear gas and beat anti-gernment otesters to disperse clou for attenng the mial for woman's ose killing made her an on. it's e human face o the glol recession. unemployment, and theumbers keep rising. tonht a look at how european are trying to stem the tide. >> could a tacti of a war in africa be behind a sexual assault of an8-year-old girl in the united states? as authorities investigate, w look athat's being done to combat race in liber. and fromaustralia, scientistreport a modern-day mass extinction of animals is underway, and they know what's behind it. you won'like what they found.

> good evening. i'm martin savidge. we gin tonight in iran, where a memorial fovictims of the olence that followed last month's disputed elections turned into anotheray of protests by thousands of peple, and yet moreviolence. they're increasingly angry, not only about the governmens crackdown but the trtment of those dained and hld in prison. trials for some ofhose people will begin this ekend. nd iran is our leadocus once again tonight. today's demotrations began at bassemetery in southrn tehran. there thousands of people gaered to mark the end of the 40-day mrning people for

nettia sultan. her death in late june has become a rallying cry f the oppositn. this internet video is sai to of today's event. in it, protesters can be heard chanting, don't be scared. we'll all together. opposition candidate mir hossein mosavi tried to join the mourners but was tur add way by a force of severahundred police. irian state telesion repoed ty used tear gas and batonso disperse the protesters. they released these imagesrom the sem t yixthowever, it's uncar just how severe e clashes really were. boru daragahi is the middle east correspondent for the los anles times, based in beirut. >> at first the was a clash between the demonstrators and the police. eventually the nuer of the demonsators so overwhelmed the security forces, that secuty forces ended up helpin people get to the demonstration site, realizing there was nose trying to beat back this crowd. >> tay's demonstrations com

on the heels of a decision earlier this we by iranian supreme leer ayatollah ham khamenei. they will also release 140 those crently in custody. >> beating, jailing, harsing, intimidating, teatening the protesters doesn't seem toe getting them to stoppedo they're confused. they're issuing contradictory messages. they're trying to figureut what to d to stop tis thing. they can'tuite understand it it's no like anything they experienced before. >> to take clser look at toy' demonstrations in iran a theongoingpolitical turmoile, we joined by shin molavi, an expert on iran and fromhe american fello undation. he joi us from washington. welcome to the prgram. >> thankou. >> how signicant were today' demonstrations compared t tho that folwed last month disputed elections >> well, i think these were significant, martin, because today was t 40th day afte the

killing of ne alla sultan. yo recall the woman that w shot, she became a symb with the brutality in which they were me so it w significant religisly because 40 days after a death in shia islam is knwn as the arbien and mourning ceremonies take place. but i think it was so signifint just because it took place a it shows that protes are coinuing, despite he enormous brutality that is being agnst the iranian people. do i think that has enormous significance as well. >> do youthink that these anti-governnt protests are likely to continue, prhaps even intensify? >> i think the level of anger is so gh, parcularly sense we're heang about all of these new revelatns eerging from how many of the protesters that were imprison were treated, this massively brul beatings. there we killings. there wer children who were turning in body bags.

t the question remains, martin, is how hig a costre peple willing toay and the authorities have shown they are willing to mete out severe violence against protests. it's important to think of this as a marathon andot a sprint. and i see similar tenons flarg up in these kind of protestver the nex six months to ayear. >> at the same time we learn bout internal political struggles that take ple outside of the camera'view in iran. wh can you tell bus that? >> it's ver important. what we have seen in the pst 40 days oro is the regime versus the regi in many ways. lions of the revoluon of 1979 really turng against each othe but broadly,t was a reformist, modderist coalition, centrist coalition versus the rd-liners. but at's interesting here, he had a bad week. he pointed somebody be a vice presidt. khamenei repudiated him. he to step wn from th, and then he appoied that same

pern to be his chief of staff. so ahdinejad and khenei are at loggerheads rightow and that doesn't boldell for ahmadinejad. ahmadinejad without the suppor ofhamenei is le a ship witut an anchor and a sp without guns. >> w only have abt 20 seconds left. i'm wondering how does this instability affect e u.s.' desire to ope a alogue with iran? >> i think secretarof state clint but it well when she id there's so much crisis in iran that it's ry difficult for her to imagine aa unifie response from in at this time. i think they' going to have to waiand see how this aplays out. afshin molavi, thank you souch for speakingith us tonight. thank you. the goverent of iraq confirm today that seven people haveeen killed in clashes with securty forces at a ca wherehousands of iranian exiles live th camp is nrth of baghda it was set up in 1986 for iranianfighters who were siding with saddam husin in the iran/iraq wa

the fighting, seen in this amateur deo, broke out earlier this week whenhe government tried to setp a polic station inside t camp. the united states d other governments fear at iraq will send the iranians back to their cntry where they are considered terrorists. as e war in iraq wds down for american forces, the war in afghanistan is panding forhe americans and the british of the casualties are increasing substantially, not just those kild in afghanistan but those who have bn wounded. britain'sefense ministryaid today at 57oldiers were woued in the first two weeks of this month alon th government's tryinto deal witthe fallout on several fronts, as we he from jenny wivell of itn. reporter: the rate soiers ar being wounded in afghanisn has almost dbled in the last year. along with the 22 service personnel kied in afghantan th month, 16 troops also suffed serious injuries that put their liv a risk. there areroops like lieutent guy diey, who lost a foot when he was hit by a rocket-pro poled grenade in hmand.

>> instany i felt searing pain,ot pain but heat i my leg. i lked down a there wasn't much left. just a little bit holdingiton t it was still there. and then got chucked in theack of the vicle, which probably saved my life. >> reporter: troops e being woued of a rate of about one every other day. but in the last siweeks it shot up to almost one every day. there's been sharpncrease in th number of casuales. >> we had o moments. we had days when the casualty load has been intense and da when the surgical's team ben wking full on, all of our teams ha been worki full on. they have done extremely well and i believe diver eed a standard ofare second t nhing. earlier this week the coensation claims two injure solers ovoked outrage of ose serving with the armed services. many of thoseeft comments on a

fom. >> translato some m.o.d. clks got nearly half a million for a typing injury look how little the wound guys get. it's piiful. >> what w all want is to be treated fairly,aid and looked ter when we're injured. >> the worst thing about thisis theeffect it could hve on mole. >> reporter:ith casualty figures now climbing at a alarng rate, the defense sectary hasadmitted it was posbly a mistake to sk to reduce the payouts. the government h brought forward the review of e compensation seme, which was e next spring. the armed forces ve suffered heavy losses in afgnistan. 1 service menand women ve died since operationsegan in 2001, buwith th operation now ove it's hope that at last for thepresent, the hope is behind thm. fi jenny wivell of it. in afica, a wave of violence continue in nigeria. security forces hunted for memberof aislamic sect in a nthern town after storming the

grp's mosque and headquarters last night. the group sd more than 100 members of the sectere killed and then lte today itaid the leader of e sect had been arrested. the human right group charg that secuty forc have also beenilling innocent vilians over thlast four da as they cracked down on the group, which wants to expand islac law. spain was hit by another bombing today, the second in as many da. it hapned on the island majorca and is being blamed on the basque separatist group et. two police oicers were killed in today's bombing, which targeted the car. planes and ships were blocked for atime fromeaving the reso island as police hunted for the suspects. yesterday, you wi remember in northern spain, a car bomb destroyed aolice barracks, injuring some 60 people. and i too, was blamed on eta.

even ashe global econom starts to show signsf recery, people are still losing jobs. germany said today that its unemployment rate se to 8.2% is month. still, the overnment's top labor official saidhe effects of the downturn have been comparatively derate. he poied to aprogram in which almost 2 million people are working few hours with the help of govnment bsidies. in an effort to help companies avoidig job cuts. t now as we hear from deutse wel wee, even some companiesho have benefited from the pgram are findinit hard to continue. reporter: this electrician out of ajob. the official note ca this morning. he and of his colleagues wll have to leavehe lisa and voga steel plants western germany. they havebeen on reduced wking hours for six months and thought that, that would sav their jobs. >> translator: many of u were taken complely by urprise. he government has extended the

shorter worng hour scheme so companies can use it for up two years. we thought that is what they would do, that the company would keep on trng. b aarently not. >> reporter: the plant' employees have only been working half week since january. here's not much todo. the firm's turnover is down by 40%. under th reced hours scheme, they pay abut 60% othe normal wages. most othe rest is paid by the state, b now the company can't even afford that. >> translator: untilow we've managed t avoid redundancies with this solution. t in the long term, it rks out too expensive andas finally led to layoffs. >> reporter: this i the employnt agency in isalon, their hometown thetaff here used toknow all of the short-time workrs personall now their les fill two entire offices. one-third of all of those employed in theegion are on reduced working hours.

their numbers are going own, t only because some of th are losing the jobs completely >> tnslator: i've never experienced ything like it. i went throughhe first crisis in 1967. that wasn't so bad. i eerienced the old cris oil cr an that had an mpact. and i was here after the period of reunificationnd everything t worse, but i never experienced anything like this. >> repter: neither have the workers. the electrician who's just lost his job has little hope o finding new rk. but he says he will start writing job applications anyway, and his colleagu are hopin they won't be nt. >> translatoryou can't let it geto you, or you just wouldn't be able to sleep at nht. i thinkt will worry everyone re. >> reporter: they say they can't exclude the possibility of more layos if the situation does not improve. >> view from germany'seutsche welle. now let's go tgreat britain, wre the uemployment rate7.6%, ithe highestin a

dozen year but that figur masks the sufferi of the group hardest it by that downtn, that's britain's young people. now the govnment is trying to give them a helping nd, a we hear in some report john sparks froitn. >> reporter: o a fashionable square in a trendy cner of loon, the lunchtime service h just finishe the employee here, all young and ambitious, arebusy cleaning up. but not so long ago, they were unskilled and unemoyable. no employer wou go nearthem. >> the harm was there. the econom hit andt was just terrible, terribletiming. >> you wake up in the morng and you thi, have i got money to eat? have i got money for the restof the week? about 80,000 until the next time. and it like your stuck. there's no way foward. >> porter: in for a dose of reality a the oxton apprentice

restaurant is the business secretary, mandell son he arved before lunch with a new heme that intends to provide 40,000 jobs or young peopl one condition, is for those who ve been looking for work or training for more an one year. >>e have to gt them into training and internship a whole varietyf different . >> reporr: in 2009, young people are bearing the bunt of the jobs downturn. employment acros the economy has falle by 1.8% since the recession started. but among 18-yearlds to 24-year-olds, it droppe by more than 6%. and for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds, emplment has droppe an incredible 16%. more than 900,000people in these age groupsre now uneloyed. >> we've g hundreds of thsands of young people due t leave universits and schools this year. employers aren'tecruiting and this leaves a hug challenge fpo

entering the jobs mart. >> reporter:nd that can be a major probl with the governnt scheme. itants to create job opportunities in areas like tourismnd small busine enties. but people le charlgz wond, who runs a solar ergy firm, dosn't need unskilled employees. mrwonder needs special people who reallywant to work for him. > i think it'sar easier to -- to take on somebody who's inspired byit all than it iso be have someone fsted you that perhaps hasn' even ought of what they want to do in life. >> repter: critics say the government's new job scme for young people ll create st bs with lile long-term value for empyer or employee. t is a so job better than no job atall? north korea' economy relies on outside help toeed its 24 million peopl but some of the areetting eir fist taste ofast ood. no,t's not monald's or rger king, at least not y for the authoritarian communist country. but north korea first fast

food restaurant is serving up hamburgersnd french fries. the burgers cost $1.70. that's more tha half the erage north korean daily income. the signature dish is known as minced beef an bread. calling it a hamburger, jt too american, 're told. th story y mayave heard about caught ourattention here this week. arizona an 8-year-old rl, an immigrant from the west african nation o liber, was allegedly raped by four liberian boyswo weeks ago. it caused outre here and far beyond, partly because the girl's parents blame her for bringing shame to e family. this remded us of a sigture ory we brought you earlier this year on the issue o rape in liberia, which was pervasive

as thatafrican nation struggled with yes of civil war. re again is lynn sheer's report on some of th women fighting bk against sexual vience against women. >> reporter: likeverything elsen liberia today,he national lice force is tryi to rebuild. tse are the latest recruits -- the new fce of the naon resold to enfor security. and theery newesaces are these, female recits, now some 13% of e entire force the goal is 20%. they are lured and encouraged by thetop cop, beatrice muna brown. as the inspector geral of the lirian national police, she is leading the fight again the country's worst crime problm, rape and sexl violence against women. during three waves of cil rs thatkilled nearly quarter milli people and wasted liberia's homeland, wars fought, it is said, on the bodies o women, rape was used wth

appalling repetition as a weap. where the ghting wasfiercest more than halthe women expericed sexual violence. thear ended in 2003, but even now inpeace they say pe is the highest reported crime in the capital city monrovia. more than half of the cases involve girls 10 to 14. >> i think it's anssue of violence it's an issue ofower. sometimes would say it's a sickness perhaps. >> reporter:eputy justice minist eva mappy-morgan said the keys exercising t streth of women. >> theact that we in post war dosn't mean that those issu that menhave, have been det wih. we have to examine ourselves, see what it is we want todo so hat we are not contuously aming these people these n, for victimizing . weave to see ourselves now as being our own advocate.

>> report: in that spit, the ig is takg the message of women's power to lal communities. and unting on her fema officerto help change the face of law enforcement a country where women have long be treated like pperty. >> you have a countr in a time where a fele comesup and says, i have been abus by my husbd, and a maleofficer downplayst. they lk at it, like, well, is yourusband so bad? you don'get that attention. you need unt maybe somebody's hurt oread. but now the females are listeng to them. >> reporter: the parade feme strength extend to the military and the united nation peacekeepers, where all-women contingent from india underscores the governmens commitmento law enforcement and its zero-tolerance approach to sexual violation. liberian president ellen johnson

surl was swep into office, promisi swift punishment for crimeagainst women. four years ago a new law was passed broadening the definition rape and making itunishable for u to a lifesentence, and the presidenhas made it such a priority that t anti-rape message is now being marketeds aggressivelas soda pop and cell pnes. it's all part of a very public campaignto encourage ope talk about sexual olence. someen are already gettg the message. for tho whore not, there are nstant reminders. gentlemen, behaveyourselves, rrect yourselve ink about it. we are your daughter we are ur mothers we are your wives, and we are your sists. so when you violate a one of us, you viate your ther. you violate your wife. yo violate your sister. you violate your daughter. so get on the bandwan with us. >> report: that's just wha tse women in chocate city,

an area outde monrovia, are hopi the men willlearn from this event sponsored bthe inrnational rescue committe the women can lrn from it, too. that's a womanlaying an abusive me, driving me the messa that sexual vionce is unceptable. that inews to many of these women, and ty've taken up the cause with energy anhumor. "my breasts are mine"he ings, "don't touch. myutt is mine. don'touch." i'm looking at your headgear it says, report l rape cases tohe police. w, during the war you couldn't do that,f cours >> no. >> what would happen? >> they might have killed you in the process.

>>eporter: who wld kill you? >> the men, the rebels. they would kill u. >> reporterthat's precisy what inspecto brown ander new beefed-up police force are changing. e ig is deterned to get more women in unifor because women, she sas, are perfectly sted or the j. >> men, you give tat in life like your mother. as soon as you place that chd into her hands in thehospital, we can empower you gs to protect thwhole world. >> reporter: i' lynnsherr for "worlocus" in liria. >> for mo on women fighting rape in liberia, including a web exclusiventerview, go to rldfocus.org.

> finally tonht, we go to austlia, where there's a new warning of mass extitions of plants and animals in the broad uth pacific region known as oce oceana, unless there are mor changes to ptect the enronment. the warng comes from scientists who have reviewed thousands of sear studies in the region and insist thempact of huma is the caus we get moreon this from shane mcleod of abc in australia >> reporter: going ck through the fossilrecord, sientists re still ucertain about what caused the five or six mass exnctions in earth's history. e events like the o thatiped ou the dinosaurs. with the number of extinction rising alarmingly decades, scientists areworried. >>ost biologists believe now we're intour xth gatest extinctionevent, and i's really down to o spees, and that'shuman. >> porter: and oeana is no

ifferent. scientts have reviewed more th 24,000 conservation researchapers across the region. th've found environmentss diverse asaustralia's outba and th pacific isnds affecting many of t same survival challenges. unequivally, it's the role of hans that's determinin what's hppening to the biodiversi conservation in our region. and it'sundamentally due to ineasing population rates an our consumption. >> reporter: habat destructionoverfishing and hunting and pollution a among the most devasting along with the looming threa of clite chae, and some of the scies hat have arrived, along with mans, are havin amatic impact. the prescription, the scientists say, is a better coornated response. whe national parks and otected zones are on the ri, there's still t enough to otect ecosystem from the thres. >> such as ld clearing, logging, building dams a diverting wateout of rivers. >> repter: but most of all, they say, human behavior has to

change. shane mcleod, abc news. and that's "wldfocus" for this thsday evening. don't forget, go to worldfocus.or for much more global news and to watchthe program any time. i' martin savige in new york. as always,we thank you for joing us. we'llook for you back here again tomorrow andany time on the web. unl then, have a good night. captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com