Al Jazeera World

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n 2011, four young Omani women decided to break the mould, challenge stereotypes and learn to sail. It's a sport dominated by men, but Rajaa Mubarak al-Owaisi, Entisar al-Tobi, Raya Rashid al-Habsi and Asrar al-Ajmi made up the crew of al-Thuraya under the auspices of Oman Sail. The crew and their boat take their name, al-Thuraya, from a constellation of stars. The four young women were part of a government initiative to promote the power of sport internationally, put Oman on the global map and revive the country's maritime heritage. By doing so, they challenged Gulf stereotypes of women. The women and their families had to think carefully about the effect their sailing might have on family life and whether it would affect their marriage prospects or responsibilities in the future. "It [marriage] hasn't happened yet," says Asrar al-Ajmi. "If it happens, I'll have to think about my priorities. It also depends on whether he'll accept it or not." As well as empowering these young Omani women in ways they didn't imagine possible, sailing enabled them to develop as people. "I've changed a lot", says sailor Rajaa Mubarak al-Owaisi. "I wasn't a sociable person before. But now I've changed. I meet journalists and people from other countries. I never thought I'd travel abroad." Al-Thuraya was the first women's sailing team in the Gulf region.They set out to change perceptions of women in the region by doing the same thing as the men, in the same conditions. But it was about more than just a yacht racing. They wanted to move barriers to achieve something different. "We're doing this for our country, our families who've supported us and the management as well," explains Raya Rashid al-Habsi. "We want to present a positive image and change the stereotypical expectation of women… We want to tell them that women can do more, physically and mentally. We want to change the misperception of women's capabilities." Al-Thuraya crewmembers and coaches paved the way for what's now called The Oman Women's Sailing Team and hope their example will encourage young Omani women to follow suit. "What I would really like the al-Thuraya team to do... is to show other people, women, men that this is a good adventure," explains coach Niall Myant. "It is something really special to have people say 'well, you know, you were impressive, I respect your talent' and that is what this team is about. It is about hopefully some children will look at the team and think maybe that is for me, maybe I should work hard enough that I can go to the world championship, with the Oman flag on my back and show everybody how strong we can be." More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

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On January 21, Yahya Jammeh boarded a plane at Banjul's international airport and left the country he had ruled for 22 years. He had refused to accept election defeat in December. West African heads of state set off on a marathon month-long negotiation, taking turns to get him to accept the results. Eventually they gave Jammeh an ultimatum: either he steps down or 7,000 soldiers from the region step in to take back control of the country. On January 19, foreign troops marched in as the country's elected leader, Adama Barrow, was sworn in. Jammeh took power after a bloodless coup in 1994, when he was a 29-year-old lieutenant. "We have no plans to stay long. What we are here for is to set a just system and to put up structures so that what happened in the past 13 years will never happen again," he said back then. But soon, he swapped his army uniform for a white traditional robe and changed his tone. He ruled the country with an iron fist - imprisoning critics and political opponents. Human rights organisations accused him and his security forces of torture and enforced disappearances. We talk to the men and women who helped bring Yahya Jammeh's 22-year rule to an end. More from Talk To Al Jazeera on: YouTube - http://aje.io/ttajYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/talktoaj Twitter - http://twitter.com/talktoaljazeera Website - http://www.aljazeera.com/talktojazeera/

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In November 2013, Elena Zakusilo, a Ukrainian Jewish woman, appeared on the Ukrainian TV show "Lie Detector", revealing that she worked for the Israeli army and continued to do so. "The first time I killed was difficult for me. I threw the weapon and said I wasn't going anywhere. But I went," she said and admitted to having killed civilians, including children. Countries across the globe, including France and Britain, sometimes employ foreign nationals in their armies. Britain recruits citizens of the Commonwealth nations, and France has the Foreign Legion. At the other end of the spectrum, South Africa has strict anti-mercenary laws, according to which any kind of mercenary activity is illegal for South Africans. As thousands of foreign 'lone soldiers' are serving in the Israeli military, Al Jazeera went to find out how and why Israel encourages volunteers from the Jewish diaspora and beyond to work in its army, both as paid soldiers on the front line and volunteers in non-combat roles. What drives foreigners to join an army which is sometimes heavily criticised for its human rights violations? Are they comparable to volunteers joining opposition groups in Syria? And is the phenomenon of foreign nationals volunteering for the Israeli army a problem, and if so, why? "Israel's Volunteer Soldiers" is the culmination of a two-year investigation into how and why people from abroad join the Israeli army, both as paid soldiers and unpaid volunteers. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

The Turkmen are an ethnic minority in Syria whose ancestors were Turkic peoples who fanned out across Central and East Asia in the 11th century. The Ottomans encouraged them to migrate south, so when the Ottoman Empire was divided after World War I, their descendants found themselves in the very north of Syria, close to the Turkish border. President Bashar al-Assad's Syria is a secular, socialist republic and in pursuing a policy of "Arab unity", it doesn't recognise many, if any, ethnic minorities. As such, the Turkmen suffered institutional discrimination over religion, employment and education for many years and were forbidden from writing and publishing in their native Turkish dialect. When they took part in the March 2011 uprising against the Syrian government, they suffered harassment, attacks, arrests and torture. "The [government's] prisons are two levels below ground," says Adil Orli, commander of Camp 1071, a training facility in the Turkmen Mountain region near the Turkish border. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has a population of around 51 million people. The Burman ethnic group constitutes around two-thirds of this figure and controls the military and the government. But there are also more than 135 ethnic groups in the country, each with their own culture. Many of them have become internally displaced by government moves to exploit land, provoking long-standing friction. In fact, the conflict between Myanmar's ethnic minorities and the ruling Burmese majority represent one of the world's longest ongoing conflicts. One group, the Muslim Rohingya, are not recognised as an ethnic nationality of Myanmar, so they suffer from arguably the worst discrimination and human rights abuses of all. The Rohingya population is somewhere between one and two million and they are living mainly in Rakhine State in the north of the country. In this film, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Salam Hindawi goes to Myanmar to investigate the situation surrounding the Rohingya. Myanmar has been tightly controlled for decades and Hindawi has enormous difficulties gaining access to certain areas of the country that the government simply doesn't want anyone from outside to see. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

The story of Bisan Daher, an eight year-old girl rescued from the rubble of her home in Shujayea neighbourhood in 2014 when an Israeli bomb killed most of her family. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

In the second episode of Libya's Shifting Sands, Libyan government-backed forces find themselves fighting ISIL in the central coastal city of Sirte, 850 kilometres west of Derna. ISIL moved on Sirte before it was forced from Derna, partly because it saw cities where the majority of people were opposed to the revolution of 2011 as prime targets. But by 2015, the government troops were fighting a losing battle. They expected to be boosted by forces controlled by the renegade General Khalifa Haftar - but his operation proved less effective than anticipated. In Derna, the government forces and local armed Islamist groups accused Haftar of colluding with ISIL. They referred to his group as Operation Dignity forces, after his campaign against supporters of the February 2011 revolution in Benghazi. "Some people and military personnel in Sirte supported the old regime. So they believed that helping ISIL was better than having the 17th February revolutionaries in Sirte," explains Ismail Shokri, a Libyan intelligence officer. So when the March 2015 fight against ISIL in Sirte began, "I remember Operation Dignity planes bombing Battalion 166 as they were fighting ISIL", he says. They [ISIL] weren't targeted or bombed so they arrived safely in Sirte, protected by Haftar. He claims to fight terrorism but why didn't he bomb them? Brigadier Mohammed Al-Ghusri, in charge of operation al-Bunyan al-Marsous As the government backed-forces were doing their best to fight ISIL in Sirte, General Haftar's forces launched what they called 'Operation Qurdabiya Two', their supposed bid to liberate Sirte from ISIL. But it fell well short. Watch both episodes here: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2017/06/libya-shifting-sands-derna-170613115119424.html More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Libya's Shifting Sands is a two-part series that offers a rare glimpse into the fight against The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in two strategically important cities of Derna and Sirte. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

This is the story of four bikers who fought on different sides of the Lebanese Civil War but who’ve now found friendship and a common cause in the local Harley-Davidson Club – which they founded. The fifteen-year war between 1975 and 1990 divided communities along sectarian lines, split a country and left deep scars. George Greige is Maronite, Marwan Tarraf Shia, Jamal Kahwaji Sunni and Ghassan Haider is Druze. The four now reflect on the senselessness of war, the dangers of power and greed; and their common passion for their saving grace…the Harley. They say they fought in the war not out of deep personal conviction but because they felt they had to pick a side and defend themselves. “At a crucial age we found ourselves in an atmosphere of war,” explains Ghassan Haidar. “We had to take part in the war to protect ourselves. Everyone was armed, regardless of their age. So why not us?” The war involved a mix of local, irregular militias, both Muslim and Christian – as well as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which arguably also drove a wedge between communities. The different factions were backed by regional and international powers that flooded the country with arms. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe

Madeleine Kolab always had a strong relationship with the sea. She grew up swimming and helping her father in the family's fishing business, while dreaming of a career as fashion designer. But the life of the Gazan teenager changed dramatically when her father was attacked by an Israeli patrol boat in 2009. "I would always go to the sea with my father to play and swim. As I grew older, my relationship with the sea turned from being a game to a part of my life. My dreams were swept away by the waves and became broken ones," she says. Due to Israel's ongoing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, fishermen are struggling to make ends meet. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Gaza offshore fishing limit was set at 37 kilometres. But over the following 23 years, Israel gradually reduced this to as little as five kilometres at one point. The fishing limit is enforced by Israeli gunboats, so fishing in Gaza has become a risky business. As the eldest of three children and with no other source of income, Madeleine felt obliged to become the sole family breadwinner after her father was badly injured in the gunboat attack - a challenge she now takes great pride in. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe