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Your World Today

New Insurgent Tactics Emerging; Prince Harry to Deploy to Iraq; Iran Could Now Face Tougher U.N. Sanctions

Aired February 22, 2007 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: A disturbing new weapon. Insurgents in Iraq detonate a makeshift chemical bomb. A second such attacks in as many days.
HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Destination Iraq. Britain's Prince Harry gets his wish and gets ready to ship off to a war zone.

CLANCY: A deadline come and gone. The U.N. says Iran has failed to heed its call to stop its uranium enrichment activities.

GORANI: And girls going wild. What role do celebrities and the media play in leading young women astray?

It is 8:00 p.m. in Baghdad, 8:30 p.m. in Tehran.

Hello and welcome to our report broadcast around the globe.

I'm Hala Gorani.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy.

From London, to Los Angeles, wherever you are watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

GORANI: Well, it was one year ago when the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra was bombed, reviving the intense split between Sunni and Shia Iraqis.

CLANCY: It wasn't just another bombing. That is clear. Most observers agree that this is what ignited a sectarian civil war that has killed tens upon tens of thousands of Iraqis and complicated any effort to secure the country.

Some of the day's developments.

GORANI: All right. Insurgents detonated the second bomb this week combining explosives and chlorine gas. Now, six are dead, but more than 70 Iraqis hospitalized.

CLANCY: Between 12 and 26 people were killed in an extended gun battle. And U.S. air strikes on insurgents in Ramadi.

GORANI: A second allegation of rape has been leveled at Shiite- dominated troops by a Sunni woman. Four soldiers have been arrested.

CLANCY: And British military officials now confirming Prince Harry will deploy to Iraq with his regiment this spring.

The growing threat to U.S. helicopters and the dangerous combination of chemicals and explosives, two more things to really worry about. But there may be some good news.

Kathleen Koch joins us from the Pentagon to talk about these worrisome tactics and how coalition forces are fighting back -- Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, you mentioned one of them there just a couple of minutes ago. And that right there in southwestern Baghdad, it occurred, and that was this car bomb packed with chlorine gas cylinders going off, killing six people, sending more than 70 people to the hospital with respiratory problems.

The commander of U.S. troops in Iraq says this marks the third time since January that insurgents have mixed chemicals into these bombs to make them more lethal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RAY ODIERNO, U.S. ARMY: They adapt like we do. And what they're trying to do is try to adapt in such ways where they can continue to create instability. And that's what they're doing, especially with these chlorine IEDs. That's just another way they're trying to adapt to cause some sort of chaos here in country.

And we'll continue to adapt towards those. As I said, when we found this factory a day and half ago, we found chlorine cylinders there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Lieutenant General Ray Odierno was talking there about a car bomb factory that U.S. forces located just two days ago, where, again, they found these chlorine gas cylinders. And they found that factory actually thanks to tips from Iraqi citizens. Those have doubled in recent months.

The other change in strategy is targeting U.S. helicopters in an increasingly coordinated manner. Odierno mentioned that of the eight downings of U.S. helicopters since January, in at least two or three of the cases there were actually -- there were targeted -- excuse me, there were coordinated and organized ambushes. And he says the military believes that several cells are involved, that they are likely al Qaeda backed. But Odierno said in the last couple of days, in operations the last few days and last week, they've picked up three people they believe are responsible.

Back to you, Jim.

CLANCY: Kathleen Koch reporting to us there live from the Pentagon -- Hala.

GORANI: Well, Iraq was high on the agenda when U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with Australian Prime Minister John Howard in Sidney Thursday. Antiwar protesters used the occasion to demonstrate against Australia's continued presence in Iraq and support for the war there. Several people were arrested after a brief scuffle with police.

Now Cheney is touring Asia to promote the Bush administration's new plan for Iraq.

Prince Harry has won his battle to go to war in Iraq. Confirmation coming from Britain's Defense Ministry on the heels of Prime Minister Tony Blair's announcement some 1,600 of his troops are going to be pulled from the frontlines in Iraq.

Alphonso Van Marsh report this decision raises concerns that the young royal could be the number one target for insurgents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALPHONSO VAN MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When the third in line to the British throne trained for army duty, he said he did not want a desk job.

PRINCE HARRY, UNITED KINGDOM: I wouldn't be where I am now, because the last thing I want to do is have my soldiers sent away to Iraq, or wherever, like that, and for me to be held back home twiddling my thumbs.

VAN MARSH: Military officials confirming Prince Harry is getting his wish to be treated just like any other British soldier, joining thousands of them in Iraq by the summer.

JOHN NICHOL, FMR. RAF NAVIGATOR: The most important thing about being in the army is to go where your men go, to go where your colleagues go. You want to be with them. You want to fight alongside them. You want to share the dangers with them. That's what you joined the army for.

VAN MARSH: Prince Harry is a called Troop Commander Wales by his troops in the Blues and Royals Regiment. The military says the unit is part of a long-planned rotation of British troops in Iraq.

It's expected Prince Harry will deploy some six months outside the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The military confirmation comes a day after British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a gradual withdrawal of British troops in Iraq.

Seventy-one hundred serve there now. More than a hundred have been killed since 2003, raising questions of how wise it is to a royal prince to a war zone.

Troop Commander Wales would be a high-valued target for Iraqi insurgents, a security nightmare for British commanders, the prince's security detail, and the troops around them. But one former military commander says don't worry about it.

COL. TIM COLLINS, FMR. ARMY COMMANDER: His regiment is going there and he will wish to do his duty. And I should think that the nation would like to see him doing his duty. And I'm certain his father and the queen would like to see him there with his men.

They will look after him and he will look after them. And together they will do their duty.

VAN MARSH (on camera): There's long-standing tradition of British royals serving in the military. Prince Harry's father, grandfather and uncle all had notable careers in the British armed forces. And given Prince Harry as recent portrayal as a so-called party prince, seen coming in and out of discos and bars, a stint serving in Iraq, while obviously dangerous, could serve him well in the public eye.

Alphonso Van Marsh, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: All right.

Iran in defiance. The International Atomic Energy Agency says Tehran is not only ignoring a U.N. Security Council demand to stop uranium enrichment, but that it has in fact increased its production. That was the bottom line in a report that IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, submitted to the Security Council a short while ago.

Let's get more. Liz Neisloss joins us live from the United Nations. Aneesh Raman is in London.

We're going to start first with Liz.

What is the likely impact of this report on Iran and its nuclear program within the United Nations, Liz?

LIZ NEISLOSS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The likely impact, Hala, is that Iran will see some kind of incremental increase in sanctions. Currently, Iran is under sanctions that relate specifically to its nuclear program, trying to clamp down on any incoming technology, nuclear know-how, and that is something that council diplomats are going to look at, at the United Nations. They're going to see how they can incrementally -- and that's the word being used -- incrementally ratchet up sanctions -- Hala.

GORANI: All right, Liz. We're going to leave it there for now because we're going to get reaction as well from Iran.

Liz Neisloss at the United Nations.

Aneesh Raman, who has traveled many times to Iran and reported on the nuclear program in that country, is in London right now and joins us live with more reaction from Tehran.

What have we heard, Aneesh?

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no surprise, Hala, really, in terms of what we're hearing from Tehran. This report, Iran says it will not stop its nuclear program, something that Iran says is its right, peaceful civilian nuclear energy. And gain, Iran says the report confirms that dialogue is the best way to bring about a diplomatic solution.

We've known the headlines of this report because Iran has told us in the past few weeks that it is not stopping its nuclear program. And Iran now will have to wait and see, as Liz pointed out, what the U.N. Security Council does. How significantly does it ratchet up sanctions against Iran, or does it devolve into the diplomatic sort of bickering we saw at the end of last year, with Russia and China less likely to go on board and a much harsher sanction?

So, Iran, right now not changing any of its strategy on the nuclear program because of this report. And it's just waiting to see what the U.N. Security Council does -- Hala.

GORANI: All right. Really briefly, Aneesh, give us a sense of the internal situation, how this is playing inside of Iran with ordinary citizens, and also the popularity of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- not at a very high point there.

RAMAN: Not at a high point. His honeymoon, if it existed -- and it did for a couple of months -- is over.

He came into office promising economic reform, and now the brewing frustration that he hasn't delivered on that is starting to become vocal, is starting to become dissent within Iran. He's been told to stay out of nuclear politics. He's been notably subdued -- and you see him there at the U.N. -- in his recent speeches.

It is interesting, though. Iranians across the board say it is their right to have peaceful civilian nuclear energy. But more and more, you're hearing voices say, is that right, worth further, harsher, economic sanctions -- high on employment, high inflation.

These are things that the average Iranian faces every day. And they are now confronting how much they are willing to go along with the government's desire for nuclear energy inasmuch as it will affect their economy.

So, it's very important to watch what's happening inside Iran in the coming months, because that is where the support for the government could start to go away.

GORANI: All right. Very interesting stuff.

Thank you so much.

Liz Neisloss, at the United Nations, and Aneesh Raman joining us from London today. We'll be checking in with both our correspondents throughout the hours ahead.

All right. Let's move on to something else now.

CLANCY: That's right. We'll check in with some of the other stories that are making news this day.

(NEWSBREAK)

GORANI: All right. Well, still ahead here on YOUR WORLD TODAY, the bombing of an Iraqi holy site a year ago sparked a massive increase in sectarian violence. More on that. CLANCY: And then a little bit later, a new study gives us some fresh insight on young girls and the kind of message they may be getting from the media.

GORANI: Think Britney Spears, Anna Nicole Smith. Do you think there has been too much media attention on celebrities with problems?

E-mail us your views at cnn.com. We'll read a selection of your comments a bit later in the show.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back to CNN International. You're with YOUR WORLD TODAY.

CLANCY: Where we try to bring you up to date on some of the most important international stories of the day.

GORANI: All right. Now let's move on to Iraq. And we mentioned that anniversary of the bombing of the Samarra mosque. That is Shia -- one of Shia Islam's holiest sites, that Golden Dome mosque in Samarra.

CLANCY: This was the event that really -- it touched off, ignited that wave of retaliation between Sunnis and Shias, creating what many today say is a virtual civil war that continues.

GORANI: Now, we want to warn you that some of the video in this next story is very graphic and can be difficult to watch.

CLANCY: CNN's Michael Ware prepared a special report on the impact of the bombing. Again, though, a warning -- some of this video is very graphic and difficult.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): These men are going to die. Shia accused of being militia members executed by Sunni hard- liners because they believe in a different brand of Islam. Their deaths displayed in this slickly-produced video by the Iraqi guerrilla group Ansar al-Sunnah, loosely affiliated to al Qaeda.

This footage, typical of images released by Ansar al-Sunnah and seen on Iraqi TV stations, was distributed by the group in the last few weeks. And as Sunnis kill Shia, so, too, Shia kill Sunnis, like these men, kidnapped, tortured, their bodies, hands still bound, dumped in a Baghdad neighborhood controlled by a Shia militia. Dozens of bodies appear on the capital's streets every morning.

To Iraqis, this is civil war -- what it looks like, what it is -- a daily accumulation of terrible moments just like these, borne by families on both sides of Iraq's sectarian divide. Sectarian violence has plagued Iraq almost since the invasion itself, but its full fury was not unleashed until one year ago, February 22, 2006, when this holy place was blown up apart. The Golden Dome Shrine in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, its bombing so incendiary, moderate Shia leaders who had managed to hold back their faithful in the face of violent provocation for nearly two years finally lost control. The weeks after the bombing said to be by al Qaeda, though it never claimed responsibility, saw scores of Sunni mosques attacked.

This one raked with machine gun fire. The blood of its attendants staining the floor.

What had beened ad hoc sectarian attacks turned into systematic widespread campaigns of ethnic cleansing, roaming death squads and indiscriminate suicide bombings. Included in the insurgent video, a sermon by a senior Shia cleric calling for revenge against Sunnis just days, says a Mehdi army source, after the Samarra bombing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): If you want someone to tell you to kill, and there's no one, I tell you to kill. I take the responsibility. Kill any Wahhabi, kill any Ba'athist.

WARE: A top aide to the radical Shia militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, the clerics words used on this insurgent video as a warning to fellow Sunnis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's your responsibility, my responsibility, and the responsibility of every cleric and tribal leader to mobilize a devout Shiite army, to kill Ba'athists (INAUDIBLE). The imam orders you to kill.

WARE: Though Mehdi army sources say he was quickly ordered to curb his public anger, the sentiment was widely felt. This civil war, sparked by the Samarra bombing and defined by the bloodletting that followed, is the legacy of this man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda in Iraq leader assassinated by a U.S. missile in June.

He planned from the beginning as this letter, intercepted and released by U.S. intelligence agencies and the coalition administration in February 2004 clearly outlines, Zarqawi, an extremist Sunni, described Shia as the most evil of man kind and believed only by provoking them into the kind of violence seen in the wake of Samarra would this slumbering Sunni nation awake and eventually emerge victorious.

One year on, death squads, the U.S. military says, are protected by and hidden within Iraq's police forces, haunt a terrified Sunni community. Al Qaeda assassination teams and car bomb attacks slaughter Shia in their neighborhoods. Unknown bodies float down the Tigris River, and Iraq is much closer to what Zarqawi wanted it to be.

Michael Ware, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Truly stunning video there that tells the story, the tragic story of Iraq, how no law and order was ever imposed. And it started with the criminal gangs and the looters, and it progressed to the various groups. And today it's got Sunni battling Shia, touched off not by accident, but by a plan...

GORANI: And I'll tell you what. That Sunni-Shia tension is not just in Iraq.

CLANCY: No. It's spreading across the region.

GORANI: It's spreading across the region, definitely.

All right. We're going to have a lot more, of course, on what's going on in Iraq...

CLANCY: Take a little bit of a breather here.

GORANI: ... and the Middle East. But we're going to shift gears for now. We'll have the world's financial news when we come back.

CLANCY: And speaking of finances, Hala, women winners at Wimbledon are now in line for the big money now that the world's biggest tennis tournament has finally changed its ways.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

GORANI: Well, Iran's president has been refusing to back down in the international arena for months now.

CLANCY: There is growing pressure on Mr. Ahmadinejad back at home for the way that he's handling matters there.

GORANI: CNN's Ralitsa Vassileva joins us now with some insight.

RALITSA VASSILEVA, CNN ANCHOR: He's best known for his confrontational stance on nuclear enrichment with the West. But it's his domestic performance that may be his government's undoing. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected on a platform of economic reform. He promised his people life will get better. But in the 18 months since he came to power, life has only gotten tougher, especially for Iran's poor and working-class people. More Iranians find themselves out of work in the past year. Officially employment stands at 12 percent, but could be as high as 20, some even say 30 percent.

Inflation officially at 15 percent, but it could be higher again, according to independent estimates.

Since last summer, prices of vegetables have tripled, housing has doubled, and families can tell by their shrinking grocery lists and rising rents.

The growing hardships at home, coupled with his tough stance against the West, has led to some unusual criticism of the president. Last month, a newspaper with strong ties to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Al-Khomeni wrote, quote, "Turning the nuclear issue into a propaganda slogan gives the impression that you, for the sake of covering up flaws in the government, are exaggerating its importance," end of quote.

And it's not just the newspapers, but growing a list of lawmakers are also beginning to question Mr. Ahmadinejad, leaving some to ask whether the president will even be able to finish his term.

Channel 4's Jonathan Rugman has been to Tehran, and he filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN RUGMAN, CHANNEL 4 REPORTER: He has threatened Israel, denied the Holocaust, and used his country's nuclear program to thumb his nose at America. In less than two years, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad positioning himself as tormenter-in-chief of the West.

The questions now, though, just how long will he remain Iran's president.

MOHAMMED ATRIANFAR, PUBLISHER, "SHARG" BANNED NEWSPAPER (through translator): It's very unusual here to be discussing whether the president can finish his term, but it is being discussed, among politicians, even among people on the street.

RUGMAN: His election in 2005 shocked Iran's reformist establishment. As Tehran's man, he was known for waging war against fast-food restaurants, and forcing his main employees to grow bears. The powerful conservatives thought he was a breath of fresh air, the son of a blacksmith, just the man to forge a second Islamic Revolution.

A few months later, he was calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, and his defiance, however heartfelt, may have been the beginning of a pattern.

SAEED LEYLAZ, IRANIAN COMMENTATOR: He needs To create an external enemy to have better control internally, and exactly Mr. Ahmadinejad is doing this traditional way of governing over the country.

RUGMAN (on camera): President Ahmadinejad may be outspoken figure on the world stage. But here at home he seems an increasingly embattled leader, possibly even fighting for his political life. If not for his handling of the nuclear issue, which is a source of national pride here, but for his handling of the economy, which has even fellow conservatives wondering, just how bad will it get?

(voice-over): It's the soaring price of vegetables which is hurting Iranians most. This is Davoud Kosrabody (ph). He's President Ahmadinejad's grocer, his store around the corner from the president's family home.

Last month, Ahmaninejad told his critics, that if they didn't like high prices they should shop here, because it's cheap.

"I've known the president for many years," the grocer tell us. "He's doing his best, but his customers are not so happy."

This woman, struggling to contain her anger, complaining that prices are almost double what they were a year ago.

While at this garage the mechanic complains of higher rent and bills to pay.

When we asked whether anyone blames the president, we're asked to leave. It's not done (ph) to wear your grievances with visiting imperialists from Britain or the U.S.

You can tell you're in a pariah state from the age of cars on the road. But Iranians don't just blame American sanctions now. The usually compliant newspapers are attacking the president's economic record, with inflation at around 16 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A letter to Mr. Ahmaninejad, which has been (INAUDIBLE) of history since 50, 60 years, in which they mentioned that they are worried about the economic trends of the country.

HAMIDREZA TARAGHI, FRIEND OF PRESIDENT (through translator): No, the president's popularity is high. It goes up after every trip he makes. Some reformers are exaggerating. They are opposed to the president's redistribution of wealth.

RUGMAN: But in December, Ahmadinejad was confronted by an usually bold student protest. "Death to the dictator," they shouted. Their complaints about a lack of political freedom part of a wave of general discontent. For that month's local elections saw the president's supporters heavily defeated.

This newspaper arguing that Ahmadinejad should focus on the economy rather then aggression toward the West. The paper's owner none other than Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeni, said to be unhappy about his wayward protege.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This economy has only one criticism against Mr. Ahmadinejad's government, over inflation. When it was only 10 percent, and now which it is about 16 percent. You can predict his (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): If the supreme leader stops supporting the president, then the parliament could quickly pass a law disqualifying him. Behind closed doors, they're telling him to do what he's told.

RUGMAN (on camera): So do you think the Americans should hold off that bombing campaign and wait a little bit, because soon Ahmadinejad won't even be in office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): That's true for sure. But the American government is no less radical than Ahmadinejad.

RUGMAN (voice-over): And U.S. military pressure, even U.N. sanctions, could yet rescue the president's political career, allowing him to blame the "Great Satan" and the West for Iran's economic woes. Iranians rallying around their leader.

(on camera): How worried do you think the president is that America may attack?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): President Bush may go and do something stupid. We don't know. But if he does, we will defend ourselves. The fundamentalists will be strengthened and we will have national unity.

RUGMAN (voice-over): But for now, Ayatollah Khomeini, who controls Iran's foreign and nuclear policy, appears to be reigning his president in. For Mr. Ahmadinejad, speech is a far less fiery than they were just a few weeks ago. The greatest challenge to his office, coming not from America, perhaps but from his spiritual leader and domestic hardship within. Jonathan Rugman, Channel 4 News, Tehran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VASSILEVA: Iran is hurting in other perhaps even more important ways. International sanctions and a shrinking pool of foreign investors are crimping Iran's oil production, forcing a country that sits on 10 percent of the world's oil supplies to consider rationing gasoline. Back to you.

CLANCY: All right, Ralitsa Vassileva there with out insight, looking at Iran, giving you a better close-up of what's really going on inside Iran, not just what we're hearing this day from the IAEA.

Well, a story of a different kind coming up, very interesting though. They're everywhere you look and researchers say they're harming the development of young girls.

GORANI: Some researchers do, when we come back, we'll look at images in the media that could give girls a skewed perception of reality and even damage their self esteem.

CLANCY: Also, it's a victory for women that many says is long overdue. We're going to tell you about the big change at Wimbledon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back, you're with YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International.

We turn now to a new study that has some troubling findings about young girls and the messages they're actually getting from the media. The report calls it the sexualization of girls. And it says that it's harming their mental, but also their physical health.

The study, by the American Psychological Association, looked at all kinds of images portraying girls as sex objects in magazines, movies, music videos, video games as well as on television and the Internet.

Researchers say these images can hurt a girl's confidence by equating her value with sex appeal and physical attractiveness. They say such portrayal of girls could also lead to depression and eating disorders.

The study gave some specific examples of harmful images. And among those, we have young celebrities that dress as sex objects, sometimes in school girl attire. Dolls that are aimed at young girls dressed in sexy clothing, such as mini skirts, fishnet stockings, and feather boas. Clothing for young girls like thongs, thong underwear with suggestive slogans like "Wink Wink" for girls as young as seven and televised fashion shows featuring adult models wearing lingerie, but presented as young girls.

All of that potentially harming young girls who watch this and take this in. So, we have seen the images. Let's look a little more deeply now about their consequences for young girls and their self esteem.

We're joined by Jane D. Brown of the University of North Carolina. She's the co-author of "Media, Sex and the Adolescent." Thanks for joining us. So we heard those specific examples. Dolls that have fishnet stockings and the rest of it. How can this potentially harm the mental health of young girls who take all these images in?

JANE BROWN, AUTHOR: Well I think what we're doing is leaving our girls obsessed with their bodies, rather than with their brains or with what they're going to do with their lives.

GORANI: All right. And you called these images and these role models if you want to call them this, and among them I'm sure you're referring to the young party girls that we see wearing mini skirts and that kind of thing, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, for instance. You call them sexual superpeers, explain that.

BROWN: Well what we think is that the media presents these larger than life models that then young girls want to emulate.

GORANI: All right, yes, but they want to emulate them, but they have other models. These aren't the only role models out there. They have sports women who are 17, 18-years-old doing very well. You have young women who work in very respectable fields. Why are those images having more of an impact according to your study than others?

BROWN: Well I talk about it as we're missing some of the consequences of this kind of behavior. So the media don't portray what I call the three C's of sexual health. There's little commitment or love. We almost never see anything about contraceptives. And so there are no consequences either. So it makes it look very fun and alluring.

GORANI: All right and now how did you measure the effects on young girls? I mean according to your study, how did you measure the detrimental effect on the mental and physical health on young girls who take these pictures?

BROWN: Well we were looking primarily at sexual health. So we were looking at if we found that teens who were more exposed to this kind of sexual content in the media when they were 12-to-14 years old were more likely two years later to have had sexual intercourse.

GORANI: I see, so this is a trend that has -- this represents a change from say a generation ago.

BROWN: Well, I think so because the media are much more sexually explicit. There are more shows and media directed especially at children and young teens now and so they're getting much more of this content than they ever did before.

GORANI: All right, but I'm just wondering, are girls sexually active earlier today in 2007 than they were a generation ago, 25, 30 years ago?

BROWN: Yes, they are.

GORANI: All right, and you attribute that partly to some of the images that their brain takes in growing up.

BROWN: Yes. We're starting -- we're sexualizing our children very early now.

GORANI: And you also mention adults. Some of these images isn't just that girls are dressing as adults, but that adults are dressing as young girls.

BROWN: Yes, that's a peculiar thing. We're a very screwed-up country when it comes to sex.

GORANI: Now what can parents do? Many parents are watching this. They have seven, eight-year-olds who are asking -- I heard one mother in the newsroom tell me, you know, my young daughter and all this marketing that's done at the eye level of the young child with bikinis and that kind of thing for six and seven-year-olds -- what can parents do perhaps to counteract that if this is something that's detrimental to their child's development and well-being?

BROWN: Well the first thing I would do is take the television out of your child's bedroom. We now know that about a quarter of children less than two years old have a television in their bedroom. So there's ...

GORANI: ... Well, I had a TV in my bedroom and this is something that my generation growing up had as well. So that's why I'm asking you -- is it more sort of -- is there more of an obvious, noticeable change this generation? I'm not sure I see it as much as you do, that's why I'm asking.

BROWN: Well, part of what's going on is that we're thinking about children as a market segment now. And so there's much more advertising directed at these little children. And they don't have the defenses that we as adults have about that.

GORANI: All right, Jane D. Brown, thank you so much for joining us there with the interesting results of this study and the sexualization of young girls. All right, that's focus segment for now. Jim, back to you. CLANCY: Very interesting.

Well, all of these questions about the message that starlets are sending out to young girls brings up our question today.

We're asking you, should celebrities be left alone? We've received a lot of e-mails and here's some of your thoughts.

Stuart in Germany writes: "Celebrities lives are not owned by the public and we don't have a right to report on every ltitle detail of anyone's life."

Mike from the United States says: "I don't think it's a question of whether celebrities should be left alone, as much as whether or not what is happening in their personal lives is newsworthy."

Mick from Lativa disagrees though. He says: "Celebrity by nature means someone that has given up private anonymity. Celebrities must take the bad with the good."

Now we love to hear from you. Do I have time to read one that's just come in? A really good one.

"Does the media make too much of what? You're making too much of everything. You create, generate and populate our brains with endless dribble. If you can't find a story, you make one up." And he goes on to say, "You boldly sit in our homes cutting off the top our brains and blowing hot air across our anvils, hammers and stirrups. You should thank your ratings that people are so desperate for any kind of company."

Dave, thanks for watching. We love to hear from you. Please keep the e-mails coming. Our e-mail address is yourviews@CNN.com. YOUR WORLD TODAY continues right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA, TENNIS PLAYER: Hallelujah, it's about time. Better late than never. But you saw the e-mail I wrote back to Tim Phillips (ph) when I learned about the decision. We knew it was coming. It was just a matter of when. I thought it would happen this year at the latest, next year. But Wimbledon did the right thing for the women and for society in general.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: That was tennis great Martina Navratilova reacting to the decision by Wimbledon officials to pay women's champions the exact exactly amount of prize money as their male counterparts.

CNN sports anchor Mark McKay joins us now. What a day, did they bough to public pressure?

MARK MCKAY, CNN ANCHOR: I think in a lot of ways, yes. The all- England tennis club in many ways did Jim. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in on this equal pay issue during last year's championship. The all-England club, which hosts Wimbledon is a private club, they get no public money. But they admit that broader social issues did come about in this change or made the change happen. And they called Thursday's judgment a best move for Wimbledon, the official of Wimbledon itself.

CLANCY: Now, men, they got paid more because they were more wonderful?

MCKAY: I think Hala could have a bit of a say in that. The feeling really was that, they gradually were coming together on this decision in terms of the pay.

As Martina Navratilova just said, it was going that direction. But it was a really a fact that the club's chairman said surveys actually said that men gave better value than women in terms of playing. The men play best of five set matches, the women play best two out of three matches. The women, of course, make more overall money because they decide to play doubles, while the top men usually only play singles. So that forever was the reason and they called it a matter of principle. But that principle has certainly changed today.

CLANCY: Well you know, it could set a trend here.

MCKAY: Yes, the French Open could very well come in line, Jim. not only ...

CLANCY: ... Is it the last one?

MCKAY: Yes, it is. The French Open is still -- while they pay their champions the same amount of money, the French Open does, the overall tournament purse between the men's purse and the women's purse is down. But that tournament is only three months away. But within the next month or so, the French federation could meet and come in line with Wimbledon, now Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open by paying the men and women the same amount of prize money.

CLANCY: All right, thanks a lot. Mark McKay, as always, a big development not just in the world of sports, but I think in all society because Wimbledon is such a huge event. We've got to go.

GORANI: We do. I'm Hala Gorani. Thanks for watching.

CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy. This has been YOUR WORLD TODAY. More to come on CNN.

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