The Reflection of Anti-Immigrant Sentiments on African Students in Turkey: An Examination of Social Media Posts

Recent Turkish political cinema features films that are designed and interpreted as national allegories. Born from a climate of economic and political turmoil, these films symbolize a dark, hopeless national experience. Burning Days (2022) and Black Night (2023) converge to exhibit symptoms of Turkey’s ongoing political and economic turmoil, reflecting Jameson’s description of third-world intellectuals’ hopelessness. This article examines two recurring metaphors – the posse and the sinkhole – to explore their allegorical significance in capturing national anxieties. I argue that filmmakers Alper and Alper, while rooted in century-old literary traditions, tropes, and an understanding of power politics, cannot escape these influences. Emerging from a period of crisis, their films introduce a novel crisis aesthetics marked by a defeatist tone. While sharing parallels with earlier Turkish political cinema, their unique response to Turkey’s recent context establishes a new aesthetic paradigm in contemporary Turkish cinema.

The Politics of Trade and Turkish Foreign Policy

In Turkey, the number of African university students has been on the rise since 2011, especially those on Turkish scholarships. This development is part of Turkey’s soft-power expansion to Africa and is also due to African students being able to access university education in the North. Using ethnographic qualitative research and focus group methods, involving interviews and discussions with 45 African students at university in Turkey, this study found that African students in Turkey confront multiple challenges with regard to linguistic and cultural adaptation into Turkish society. Despite these obstacles, African students draw upon their agency innovatively in promoting their educational interests and rely on their abilities to break the sociocultural barriers. Based on these findings, this research provides insight into how African university students in Turkey mobilise formal and informal resources transnationally to creatively develop transnational sociocultural platforms that are beneficial to their immediate educational goals and to their subsequent pursuit of opportunities and a career within an increasingly complex transnational world.

The extraordinary success of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the North during the closing years of the last century directly led to the United Nations' resolutions in 2000, about universal access to HIV treatment, and to the inclusion of this target among the Millenium Development Goals [1]. A previous AIDS supplement, supported by the French Agency for AIDS Research (ANRS) and published as early as 2003, presented the evaluation of the first national pilot programs for access to antiretroviral HIV treatment in three African countries (Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Uganda). These results contributed to a consensus on the feasibility of scaling-up access to HIV treatment in low-resource settings, an issue that had been heavily debated among clinical, public health and development experts [2]. Since then, antiretroviral therapy coverage rose from 7% in 2003 to 42% in 2008, with especially high coverage achieved in eastern and southern Africa (48%) [3]. There are no longer doubts that access to ART results in a remarkable reduction in mortality, which may be as high as 95% in comparison to no intervention [4]. In addition, retention in care and treatment may exceed levels seen in the North: for example, a remarkable 79% of adults enrolled in the early stages of Botswana's antiretroviral therapy scale-up are alive five years later [5]. On a macro scale, Bendavid and Bhattacharya [6] found that after four years of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding and support for ART, HIV-related deaths decreased in sub-Saharan African focus countries compared with control countries, although trends in adult prevalence did not differ. Despite the community stigma, political denial and tensions between government policy and medical practice, South Africa with the largest number of HIV infected individuals is also home to the largest antiretroviral therapy program in the world with accelerating impact. In the Western Cape Province, six-month mortality among patients at an HIV treatment centre fell from 12.7% to 6.6% between 2001/2002 and 2005 as access expanded [7]. The recent statement, on World AIDS Day on December 1st 2009, about universal access to HIV care and treatment by the new South-African President, Jacob Zuma, raises hope that South Africa will henceforth assume a leadership role in the region [8]. However, scaling-up access to HIV treatment in Africa, home to two thirds of those living with HIV/AIDS, poses new and largely unexplored challenges in the delivery of a complex set of public health, medical and psychosocial interventions. The transition from an emergency response to robust and sustainable health services delivery systems for HIV is a work in progress. Building these systems must be mindful of cultural context and existing health systems in the affected communities. The most recent [9] report on the epidemic describes a highly varied picture of remarkable progress in some African countries and huge unmet needs in others. Access to treatment in Africa is often taking place in the context of fragile states, struggling with social, political and economic turmoil, where investment in healthcare systems has been limited. Particularly in resource limited settings, there is an unavoidable competition for infrastructure, resources and personnel between donor driven programs targeting specific diseases (ie. AIDS, TB and malaria) and long standing programs in primary care, maternal and infant health. The “Maximizing Positive Synergies Collaborative Group” (MPSCG), coordinated by WHO, has recently synthesized the existing evidence regarding interactions between disease-targeted programs and country health systems [10]. Although it concluded that this impact “on health outcomes and health systems, though variable, has been positive on balance and has helped to draw attention to deficiencies in health systems”, available evidence also pointed out that further improvements and efficiency gains are needed especially to strengthen the health workforce, align health information systems, and to reduce out-of-pocket payments for financing health-care expenditures. Operational research encompasses a broad range of investigation, primarily the evaluation of outcomes among the health programs. Systematic observation and analysis of data collected alongside ART programs can provide guidance to implementers and policy makers with the aim of achieving sustainable access to care. Critical in any operational research project is the development of partnerships and capacity building between the wide array of actors who contribute to deliver healthcare, including national health services, community based organizations and advocacy groups, national and transnational NGOs, as well as the international donor agencies on the one hand, and academic researchers and research organizations on the other [11]. There are certainly general principles of treatment that can be broadly applied and evaluated in Africa. But ultimately, in each context, it may be anticipated that the design of programs for access to ART will vary. Critical unanswered questions remain about how access to ART will impact social stigma, individual risk behavior and ultimately the course of the epidemic. Because of the heterogeneity of affected populations and societies, the psychosocial and behavioral consequences of ART access and methods to ensure adherence, retention and to provide sustained treatment across Africa are not likely to be distilled to a single set of best practices. Thus, in the face of the HIV epidemic in Africa, operational research is a process of “learning by doing” in each of the diverse contexts, sharing the outcomes and observations among countries and programs. A myriad of local evaluations of process and outcome may be the most flexible way to effect sustainable implementation of ART access and the development of robust medical and social responses to AIDS in various contexts across a continent. One regrets that in spite of significant investment in evaluation exercises, global health initiatives such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), PEPFAR or the World Bank still have limited contributions to effective operational research [12,13]. Operational issues in scaling up access to ART This supplement presents original results documenting the progress, as well as obstacles, in scaling up HIV treatment in Africa. Papers from Burkina-Faso and Cameroon are based on operational research carried out alongside the national ART programs of these two countries that have been directly supported by ANRS. Other papers present fruitful experiences from operational research in additional African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and South Africa) while one paper (Celletti et al., S45–S57) focuses on a multi-country effort associating four African countries (Ethiopia; Malawi; Namibia and Uganda) and Brazil. It must be noted that the paper by Bassett et al. (S37–S44) about initiation of ART in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, one of the epicenters of the epidemic, was awarded the joint International AIDS Society (IAS)/ ANRS “Young Investigator Prize” for Operations Research at the 5th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, that took place in Capetown in July 2009. Finally, one paper (Jerome & Ivers, S73–S78) deals with rural Haiti, a non-African country, whose experience with ART in very deprived and vulnerable populations has been worthwhile for other low-resource settings. The process of improving and sustaining access to ART begins with surveillance and testing to understand the magnitude of the epidemic locally, and requires assessment and consultation with Ministries, healthcare providers, communities and stakeholders to identify the key operational issues in access. Access to ART begins with the effective implementation of voluntary testing on a scale not yet realized, effective post-test counseling, linkage to care, and has already led to monitoring, care and retention of 3 million people on ART in Africa. How to accomplish each of these tasks with health systems that are often insolvent and frequently understaffed is the focus of the papers presented in this supplement. All papers emphasize that advances in access to ART have only been made possible through implementation of innovative ways of delivering and monitoring care, and also illustrate some of these innovations. Clinical research programs continue to evaluate new, less toxic and potentially less costly drug cocktails, more effective monitoring algorithms and programs to reinforce and maintain treatment adherence that would be better adapted to the practical constraints of health systems with very scarce resources. Notably, the DART study results in Uganda and Zimbabwe suggest that some of the accepted guidelines for laboratory monitoring need careful reassessment [14], and the forthcoming results of the STRATALL study in Cameroon will evaluate the impact of the WHO public health approach to monitor ART at a decentralized level of care [15]. Similarly, the management of first-line ART is fraught with issues even in the choice of Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs). Consideration of Efavirenz and Nevirapine as first line NNRTIs as described in the paper by Wester et al. (S27–S36) in Botswana reflect trade-offs among cost, potency, potential side-effects and concerns about teratogenicity and toxicity. These issues will continue to expand as additional drugs become available and as the price proposed by pharmaceutical firms for new first-line and for second-line regimens, as recommended by WHO, remain prohibitively high compared to those of the “old” generation of antiretroviral drugs [16]. It is estimated that at least 57 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, face crippling health workforce shortages, and there are simply not enough physicians and nurses on the ground to begin to address the magnitude of the HIV epidemic through traditional clinic based care. Rational redistribution of tasks between physicians and other healthcare personnel, and the introduction of community and family health aids and NGO volunteers, as medical officers, adherence counselors or treatment “buddies” is a key part of the “task-shifting” agenda articulated by WHO [17]. The multi-country paper by Celletti et al. (S45–S57), papers by Sherr et al. (S59–S66) on Mozambique, Jerome and Ivers (S67–S72) on Haiti and Ivers et al. (S73–S78) on the Haiti-Lesotho collaborative model detail the certain conditions that have to be fulfilled for the reorganization of clinical services under a task shifting model to be successful. One of the most innovative contributions of HIV programs has been to promote meaningful multi-stakeholder partnerships between governments, civil society and affected communities at the global and local levels. Civil society has critically important roles ranging from advocacy, demand creation, and service delivery, to policy-setting and providing oversight by emphasizing accountability to service users [18]. Papers by Desclaux et al. (S79–S85) on Burkina-Faso and Ivers et al. (S73–S78) on the south-south collaboration between Haiti and Lesotho illustrate how such involvement of civil society offer opportunities for creative operational research. Quite logically, it is the relationship between scaling up access to HIV treatment and health systems strengthening that bears the greatest scrutiny across most of the papers of this supplement. In a comprehensive evaluation of ART access through a national program in Cameroon, Boyer et al. (S5–S15) present analysis from the EVAL study where the quality and quantity of care at central, provincial and district levels was contrasted. This evaluation clearly shows that decentralization of ART delivery can increase equity in access for the poorest sectors of people living with HIV while maintaining clinical effectiveness, and even improving adherence and quality of life. Experiences in other African countries, like Uganda, suggest that even further decentralization of ART may be effective and cost-effective [19], but this needs more investigation and may differ according to each specific socio-economic and health systems context. Future challenges for long term sustainability of ART In this supplement, another paper on Cameroon by Marcellin et al. (S17–S25) provides compelling evidence that access to ART at higher CD4 levels reduces reported risk behaviors and can improve quality of life. This paper, and the one from Bassett et al. (S37–S44) describing considerable gaps in bringing and retaining people with AIDS into treatment in a well resourced program in South Africa, supports the recent revision of WHO guidelines [20]. These new guidelines increase the recommended CD4 count for starting treatment to 350 cc/mm3 (rather than the previous lower 200 threshold) and imply that an additional number of 5 million HIV-infected patients world-wide should be considered eligible for immediate access to ART. These papers, however, anticipate some of the new challenges and tensions that would logically derive from this extension of treatment eligibility and from the urgent need to revisit the relationship between HIV prevention and treatment. Despite the actions of many agencies and national health autorities, an estimated 1.9 million [1.6 million–2.2 million] new HIV infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa in 2008. This high incidence, and consequent increase in unmet treatment needs over time, represents an additional key challenge for ART program scale up to remain feasible and sustainable [21]. The recognition that the speed at which people are infected exceeds the speed at which they can be put on treatment has been a powerful message to advocate for enhancing prevention efforts. Treatment programs offer many opportunities to strengthen prevention, through increased uptake of testing, viral load reduction in patients and models of “prevention counseling” for and by positive people. These synergies should be fully recognized and monitored. As an illustration, in a paper on Cameroon in this supplement (Marcellin et al. [S17–S25]), patients not yet on ART reported more frequent inconsistent condom use compared to those on ART, confirming positive effects of intense patient-healthcare worker contact on behavior. (Re)-emphasizing and maximizing synergies between the ART roll out and prevention is essential and urgent but should be seen as a component of a comprehensive “Treatment and Prevention Combination” approach, including behavioral, social and structural interventions. Over the coming decade, the challenges of expanding, enhancing and sustaining treatment for the more than 22.4 million people living with HIV in Africa, will consume immense monetary, human and social resources. Evaluating the long-term outcomes of access to ART on a population level across diverse urban and rural and multiple cultural contexts in Africa present a formidable challenge. If the patterns of behavior and transmission observed in the North are any indication, large-scale access to care may increase transmission of drug resistant viruses [22]. The best way to prevent this will be the development of robust and affordable programs for retention, monitoring and management of ART by skilled providers and robust systems of care. Papers in this supplement support the optimistic view that innovative solutions can be found to tackle the multiple medical, public health, socio-economic and logistic issues related to long term sustainability of ART programs in Africa. Ensuring their financial sustainability through appropriate growth of domestic and international funding however remains a prerequisite for success, and this is far from guaranteed in the context of one of the worst economic crises the world has ever faced. Because overall demand has been higher than anticipated in the funding scenario of its previous replenishment, the Global Fund faces a resource gap for the period 2009–10 for the first time since its creation. Its future contribution to scaling up the response to the HIV epidemic will depend on the willingness of donor governments to provide significantly higher pledges for its next replenishment (2011–2013) than the 9.8 billion US$ obtained for the previous one (2008–2010) [23]. In the US, a debate is growing about whether or not a further expansion of PEPFAR would be the best use of international health funding [24]. Demonstrations, as presented in this supplement, contribute evidence-based advocacy in favor of sustainability of HIV/AIDS treatment and provide clear examples of how health systems are adapting to meet the challenges of HIV. Of course, we also present these examples to underscore the importance of continuing, flexible operational research and evaluation to maintain international and domestic funding, the life-blood of treatment access for millions in Africa, and around the world.

Turkey's foreign policy and relations in the early Republican era, before and during World War II, has been subject to systematic and scholarly research, leading to numerous publications since the 1970s. Although no less significant than Britain, Germany, or the Soviet Union in shaping Turkish inter-war foreign policy and priorities, Italy does not seem to have received a similar degree of attention in this growing literature. Italy is usually treated in the works on Turkish foreign relations only as a threat that Turkey's foreign and strategic policy aimed to counter after 1934.

Turkey's Foreign Policy:Opportunities and Constraints in a New Era Evren Balta (bio) and Soli Özel (bio) writing in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the soviet Union and the reshuffling of regional and global alliances, Malik Mufti took note of how Turkish political elites confronted this new world. He wrote, "those responsible for determining its foreign policy—motivated by considerations of fear, honor and profit—are casting their eyes back in time in search of clues on how best to proceed" (1998, 32). According to Mufti, what shaped the elites' response to the changing circumstances was a combination of external threats and opportunities coupled with domestic constraints. Focusing on strategic culture, he identified two competing lines among the foreign policy elites: daring and caution. Until the 1990s, Turkey's foreign policy establishment continued to err on the side of caution based on lessons learned from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. According to this view, the Ottoman Empire collapsed mainly as a result of Ottoman elites' adventurous foreign policy and their expansionist and greedy outlook. More importantly, during the Cold War, the hallmark of Turkish foreign policy was an approach that prioritized a stable national interest defined by the sanctity of Turkey's borders and a predominantly Western orientation (Aydın 2000). This high degree of continuity and uniformity was not just limited to Turkey, as the foreign policies of small and middle-sized countries mostly reflected the bipolar nature of the international system that left little room for developing an independent [End Page 539] foreign policy. In such a polarized international setting, multilateral institutions enhanced the negotiation power of small/middle powers (Matarrazzo 2011, 55). Not atypically for such countries, Turkey sought to adhere to membership in the key multilateral frameworks of the Western camp (the Council of Europe 1949, the OECD 1948, and NATO 1952) in order to intensify its negotiation power and security, enhance its international status, and compensate for its relative lack of independent foreign policy (Aydın 2000; Yılmaz 2012). As the Cold War came to a close, a persistent call for a more assertive foreign policy emanating from the newly established political parties, emerging leaders, and public intellectuals occupied the public sphere in the 1990s. Exaggerating the passivity of Turkey's foreign policy establishment, this new orientation asked for a more dauntless outlook and wanted to replace the status-quoism of Turkish foreign policy with a search for missed or new opportunities. In fact, the end of the Cold War had fundamentally altered the context within which Turkish foreign policy was conducted, and it gave way to multiple waves of foreign policy activisms (Öniş 2011, 15). Yet Turkey's foreign policy remained predominantly Western-oriented until the mid-2000s. During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the pendulum shifted more towards the daring side, what Mufti called the "Imperial tradition," after the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) took office in 2002. Initially, the party adopted extensive reforms that aimed to democratize Turkey's political system with hitherto unmatched political will and popular support. These moves, which were also in response to the European Union's "harmonization packages" that could qualify Turkey for EU membership, received strong and sustained support domestically, as they did from Turkey's democratic allies and even some neighboring publics (Akkoyunlu, Nicolaïdis, and Öktem 2013, 22). Beginning with the AKP's second term (2007), however, Turkey's foreign policy veered sharply away from the EU. Instead, enhancing Turkey's hegemonic role in the Middle East replaced the goal of integration with the West [End Page 540] and became the central aim of foreign policy particularly after the series of protest movements that engulfed much of the Arab World in 2011. Frequent crises and abrupt shifts in Turkey's foreign policy outlook have heightened the debate between the AKP and its critics, the latter criticizing the AKP for pursuing a mostly adventurous foreign policy. The debate intensified after 2011, when not just the Middle East but the international system entered a period of flux and uncertainty. It was a period in which traditional verities of international and regional norm setting...

I looked elsewhere at the structural determinants of Turkish foreign policy,' which included the factors that have traditionally influenced and shaped the foreign policy of Turkey from imperial times, through the inter-war years with Ataturk, to the present-day Republic. Thanks to these structural determinants and their strong influence upon Turkey, it has been able to display a remarkable degree of continuity in its foreign policy, in contrast to frequent internal changes. It is, to a large extent, due to these factors that Turkish foreign policy has been praised for its high degree of rationality, sense of responsibility, long term perspective, and 'realism found in few developing nations and far from universal even among the democracies of the West'.2 Yet, there are other factors that have affected Turkish foreign policy and its daily happenings. These conjunctural factors, the result of international and domestic changes over the years, have also helped to shape Turkey's contemporary foreign policy. Due to their dynamic and changeable character, however, they exerted a temporary influence on the country's foreign policy, especially on its implementation. But due to these factors, Turkey's foreign policy has undergone some rapid changes in its implementation, even if no major deviations have occurred in the ultimate national goals. These factors have modified the foreign policy of Turkey through the years to establish a better defined and more relevant foreign policy to meet the requirements of the contemporary world. Though there are several of them, this article will deal with only a few major conjunctural factors that have affected Turkey's foreign policy and its international environment. Bearing in mind that almost every happening in domestic or international politics could affect and change a country's foreign policy in one way or another, it is imperative to be selective. The selection of factors has been determined by the importance of the changes that they caused. In this respect, the most decisive reason for choosing

Turkey's foreign policy in the first decade after the collapse of the bipolar system retained features of its continuity in comparison with the Cold War: the Kemalist principles of laicism and the choice in favor of further Westernization, with its orientation towards cooperation with the EU and Euro-Atlantic structures remained firmly in place. However, the post-bipolar period demonstrated a significant change in Turkey's foreign policy. The existing explanations for this phenomenon often start either from the appeal to the Islamic identity of the Justice and Development Party as the main reason for the changes, or from the approaches that prioritize Turkey's economic interests and emphasize Turkey's attempts to strengthen economic interdependence with neighbors in the region. Given the increasing complexity of the domestic and foreign policy nexus and the increasingly fluid characteristics of the international environment, it seems that an analysis of Turkish foreign policy in the post-bipolar period requires an alternative conceptual and methodological approach that allows the changes in Turkey's foreign policy to be viewed along three dimensions. In this article, the author resorts to just such an approach. It includes the study of domestic policy, the international context and the transformation of the ideological and institutional support of foreign policy. This approach makes it possible to explain the logic of Turkey's «sudden» reorientation from cooperation with the EU and Western countries in general to attempts to consolidate its leading role in the Middle East and establish itself as a regional hegemon in relation to situational alliances with various state and non-state actors in the broader international context.

The Ozal period, first prime minister (1983-89) and then president (1989-93), was an era of novelty and change in Turkey's domestic and foreign policy. Largely deviating from the Kemalist tradition, Ozal restructured Turkish politics in many areas. The following examines changes made by Ozal in Turkey's ethnic policy. The traditional ethnic policy of the state the denial of all other ethnic groups, and 'local or Anatolian Turkism' was shaken by internal and external developments in the 1980s and early 1990s Kurdish nationalism, the change of the leadership group, the influence of political Islam, and developments in the regional context.' The definition and policy implication of 'Turkish ethnicity' shifted substantially from denial of any relationship with outside Turks and the ideological creation of Turkishness to an acceptance of ethnic and cultural understanding of Turkishness and recognition of other ethnicities. The focus here is mainly on the Kurds because of their importance as the second largest ethnic group in the country and the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East. Although there are dozens of ethnic groups inside Turkey such as Bosnians, Albanians, Circassians, Arabs, Lazes, Abkhazians, Armenians, Greeks and Jews, the Kurds are the only evident threat to Turkish national integrity, because they constitute a high percentage (15-20 per cent) of the state's population and form the majority of the population in a particular geographic area (east and south-east regions of the country).2 Examination of the 'Kemalist outlook on ethnicity' in the country, is followed by a discussion of the major changes in ethnic policy that have occurred since 1983 when Turgut Ozal became prime minister and their implications for Turkey's foreign policy.

In recent years, there has been a notable softening in Turkey's foreign policy toward Syria and Iran. How might we explain the change in Turkey's attitude toward these two countries considering the hostile relations of the 1990s and the worsening security situation in the Middle East? Drawing upon securitization theory, this article argues that domestic problems have influenced Turkey's foreign policy toward Iran and Syria in the past, as foreign policymakers have successfully externalized the sources of political Islam and Kurdish separatism. The remarkable softening of Turkey's foreign policy toward Syria and Iran since the beginning of the present decade can best be explained by looking at changes at the domestic level, particularly in terms of the process of desecuritization currently taking place within Turkey. Among other things, this process of desecuritization is the result of the European Union accession process and concomitant steps toward democratization, a transformation of the political landscape, and the appropriation of EU norms and principles in regional politics. Within this process of desecuritization and democratization, formerly securitized and dramatized issues have begun to be perceived as normal political issues. As a result, the policymaking process is now emancipated from ideational barriers, while there has been a substantial increase in the flexibility of foreign policy attitudes and the ability of foreign policymakers to maneuver in regional policy.

This study’s aim is to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and social media addiction (SMA) in Communication undergraduate students in Turkey. In addition to EI, the impact of demographic variables and social media use habits on SMA were investigated. For the study, quantitative method was chosen, and an online questionnaire was conducted on 317 Communication undergraduate students in Turkey with 301 participants being the final sample from different cities in Turkey. As a result of the study, analyses indicated that EI and SMA were related at medium and low levels. The EI partly predicted SMA. It was determined with Path analysis that intrapersonal skills, dealing with stress and adaptability could be statistically significant predictors of SMA sub-dimensions virtual tolerance and virtual communication at a negative level, and time spent on social media, number of posts on social media could have a significant impact on students’ SMA at a positive level. This research differs from other research conducted in Turkey in terms of SMA being examined with the focus of EI.

To assess the nutritional status of children in a rural community with high HIV prevalence in rural Uganda and to examine the impact of HIV infection at the individual and population level. Methods Cross-sectional population-based survey of children aged 0-12 in a cohort comprising the residents of 25 neighbouring villages in rural southwest Uganda. Anthropometric indicators of nutritional status (height for age, weight for age and weight for height) were assessed in relation to children's HIV serostatus, maternal HIV serostatus and maternal vital status. Children with a Z score of <-2 were defined as undernourished, with a Z score <-2 for weight for age defining underweight, for height for age defining stunting and for weight for height defining wasting. Of 5951 children surveyed, 91% underwent anthropometric measurement: 30% were underweight, 42% stunted and 10% wasted. HIV seroprevalence among children aged 2-12 was 0.7%. The prevalence of underweight was significantly higher in HIV-positive than in HIV-negative children (52%vs. 30%), as was the prevalence of stunting (68%vs. 42%), but there was no significant difference in the prevalence of wasting (4%vs. 9%). There were no significant differences in the prevalences of indicators of undernutrition in children classified by maternal HIV and vital status. Chronic childhood undernutrition is common in this rural community. HIV infection had a direct effect in worsening children's nutritional status, but no indirect effect in terms of maternal HIV infection or maternal death. The population-level impact of childhood HIV infection on nutritional status is limited on account of the low HIV prevalence in children. The response to undernutrition in children in Africa requires action on many fronts: not only delivering community-wide HIV and nutritional interventions but also addressing the many interacting factors that contributed to childhood undernutrition before the HIV era and still do so now.

Turkey's growing regional presence in the Middle East has been at the centre of several debates recently. This article approaches the debate on Turkey's foreign policy towards the Middle East from a Europeanization perspective. The article assesses the Europeanization of state capacity in relation to Turkey's foreign policy towards the Arab Middle East from 1999 to 2010. It is argued that Turkey's EU accession process has transformed the state, business and increased state capacity to implement Turkey's foreign policy towards the Middle East. This transformation enabled the Turkish government and business actors to improve Turkey's political and economic relations with the Arab Middle East.

The object of this study is Germany's humanitarian policy as an element of its foreign economic strategy. The subject of the research is the mechanisms, institutional architecture, and socio-economic effects of Germany's humanitarian activities in African countries. This article analyzes the evolution of Germany's humanitarian policy in Africa in the 21st century, with an emphasis on the period after 2014. The aim of the study is to identify the factors that have influenced the evolution of Germany's humanitarian policy in Africa in the 21st century. The research hypothesis is based on the assumption that the evolution of Germany's humanitarian policy in Africa in the 21st century is determined by the influence of systemic factors, including the transformation of Germany's foreign policy priorities, changes in the institutional architecture of humanitarian policy, and the strengthening of a competitive humanitarian environment on the African continent. This hypothesis is tested through an analysis of the dynamics of Germany's humanitarian instruments and their inclusion in the country's broader foreign policy and foreign economic strategy. The methodological basis of the study is a comparative-analytical and institutional approach, as well as a case study method. The empirical base includes strategic documents of the German government and financial and programmatic reports of relevant organizations. Case studies are used in Kenya, Nigeria, and the Sahel region, reflecting the different models of implementing German humanitarian policy in East and West Africa. The study demonstrates that since 2014, Germany's humanitarian policy has become institutionalized and integrated into its foreign economic strategy. Educational, cultural, and social initiatives are increasingly used as tools for mitigating structural risks, fostering sustainable economic ties, and positioning Germany in the competitive environment of interactions with the European Union and China. A conclusion is drawn about the differentiated nature of Germany's humanitarian policy in Africa, adapted to regional specifics and focused on long-term economic and institutional effects. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying the factors behind the evolution of Germany's humanitarian policy in Africa and in substantiating its transformation from a supporting element into a strategic instrument of foreign economic and regulatory influence. The findings complement existing research on Germany's African policy, shifting the focus from the description of individual initiatives to an analysis of the systemic logic of humanitarian policy in the context of international competition.

The expansion and the new directions of Turkish foreign policy over the last decade have generated a lively debate in domestic and foreign policy circles, among diplomats, analysts, academics, journalists, and businesspeople, and in civil society. The debate revolves around the transformation of Turkey's foreign policy agenda against the backdrop of major shifts in regional and global power structures. Various questions, some well informed and others rather rhetorical, are posed to assess Turkey's standing in global politics.Are Turkey's recent engagements in multiple regions a new phenomenon generated and sustained by the ruling Justice and Development party's (AKP's) domestic agenda? Is Turkey's newfound interest in the Middle East and the larger Muslim world a result of the Islamization of Turkey, as some critics claim? Has Turkey given up on the European Union and thus its traditional alliance with the west? Also, has Turkey found a balance between actor and structure, i.e., does the current foreign policy amount to more than the individual, self-proclaimed initiatives of successive AKP governments? Finally, is Turkey a model for the Arab world? These questions require a proper analysis of the major changes that have taken place in Turkey's own domestic scene, its surrounding regions, and the global order in the first decade of the 2ist century. In an age of increasing interdependence, local and global dynamics affect each other and bring about new synergies. Turkey's adjustment to the post-Cold War world and the challenges of globalization has taken various forms, ranging from a heightened sense of insecurity and new types of nationalism to embracing globalization and exploring new diplomatic and economic tools. While Europe and the US generally treated Turkey as a military ally under NATO during much of the Cold War, the new realities of volatile globalization and multiple modernities have both enabled and forced Turkey to reinvent itself as a new political, economic, and diplomatic power.1 In addition to pursuing EU membership as a strategic goal, even though not much progress has been made since 2005, Turkey has been diversifying its foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and engaging in multiple regional issues. Turkey is also rising as a soft power with a strong economy, a young population, and new cultural ties with the peoples of the Middle East and the Balkans.2To understand why and how Turkish foreign policy is transforming, I shall examine three interrelated issues. The first is the reasons behind the new dynamism in Turkey's foreign policy thinking and action. The elements that drive Turkey's new strategic thinking and modes of action need to be explained within the larger context of the new geostrategic environment in which Turkey has found itself in the 2ist century. The second is the overarching goals and principles of the new mindset that has propelled Turkey into new areas of expansion, engagement, risk-taking, and influence. These goals and principles display both change and continuity and shape Turkey's new ventures on a number of regional and global issues. The third is the instruments and mechanisms that Turkey employs in realizing its foreign policy goals. The successive AKP governments since 2002 have implemented a number of policies, including developing stronger bilateral relations, lifting visa requirements, establishing high strategic councils, and increasing Turkey's mediation efforts.My main argument is that while adjusting itself to the ever-changing dynamics of 21st-century globalization, Turkey operates from a broad foreign policy perspective that combines elements of constructivist and realist approaches to global politics and international relations. Turkey projects its sense of identity and history into its regional and global engagements, seeks to pursue a value-based and principled foreign policy, and responds to the hard realities of power struggles and national interest. …