Gul Wins Vote for Turkish Presidency

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A devout Muslim with a background in political Islam won the Turkish presidency on Tuesday, in a major triumph for the Islamic-rooted government after months of confrontation with the secular establishment.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul received a majority of 339 votes in a parliamentary ballot, Parliament Speaker Koksal Toptan said. Ruling party legislators broke into applause.
''Abdullah Gul was elected Turkey's 11th president, with 339 votes,'' Toptan said. ''I congratulate him.''
The vote took place a day after the military, which has ousted four governments since 1960, issued a stern warning about the threat to secularism. Gul's initial bid for president was blocked over fears that he planned to dilute secular traditions.
''Our nation has been watching the behavior of those separatists who can't embrace Turkey's unitary nature, and centers of evil that systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic,'' Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the military, said in a note on the military's Web site Monday.
Gul, 56, has promised to uphold secularism. But Turkey's president has the power to veto legislation, and Gul has failed to allay secularist fears that he would sign into law any legislation passed by the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- a close ally -- without concern for the separation of religion and politics.
Also, his wife wears an Islamic-style head scarf -- which is banned in government offices and schools. Islamic attire has been restricted in Turkey since the country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ushered in secularism and Western-style reforms in the 1930s.
Gul failed to win the presidency in two rounds of voting last week because the ruling Justice and Development party lacked the two-thirds majority in Parliament needed for him to secure the post. But the party -- which holds 341 of the 550 seats -- had a far easier hurdle on Tuesday, when only a simple majority was required.
Gul was scheduled to be sworn in as president in Parliament later Tuesday. He was to take over the presidency from outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer soon after, in a low-key ceremony closed to the media.
Erdogan said he planned to submit his new Cabinet to Gul for his approval on Wednesday. Erdogan had presented his list earlier this month to Sezer, who said the new president should approve it.
In Gul's hometown of Kayseri, in Turkey's conservative heartland, hundreds gathered at a main square to celebrate his victory, private NTV television reported.
Secularist Turks staged mass rallies and the military threatened to intervene when Erdogan nominated Gul for president in the spring.
Gul insisted that he be re-nominated for president earlier this month, arguing that his party's victory in the elections gave him a strong mandate to run. He rejected calls from secularist parties to step aside in favor of a non-Islamist, compromise candidate.
''A person who has defied the (secular) republic, who has said he finds it to be wrong, is about to move to the top of the state. This is a contradiction,'' said Deniz Baykal, leader of the secular opposition. His party boycotted the vote on Tuesday and has said it would not take part in some state occasions, including presidential ceremonies.
As foreign minister, Gul -- who speaks English and Arabic -- has cultivated an image as a moderate politician.
In a recent meeting with foreign journalists, Gul said he would make use of his experiences as foreign minister to boost Turkey's EU bid and make the Turkish presidency more active on the international scene.
''Turkey will be more active; Turkey will be contributing more to world issues,'' he said.
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Berat Kandili

Müslümanların kutsal gecelerinden olan Berat Kandilinizi kutluyorum.

Hazreti Muhammed hadislerinde Berat Kandili’nde Allah’ın kendisinden bağışlama dileyenleri affedeceğini, içtenlikle yapılan duaları kabul edeceğini bildirmişti.

Congratulate the oil lamp which the Muslim becomes Berat from your sacred nights. The holy at Muhammed hadith Berat you do not donate oil lamp which wishes she to will forgive and their prayer which is do sincerely make have know you.

Ferrari's Massa Wins Turkish Grand Prix

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Felipe Massa will always remember Turkey. ''This is becoming a special place for me,'' the Ferrari driver said after winning his second consecutive Turkish Grand Prix on the Istanbul Park circuit Sunday.
The Brazilian won his first Grand Prix victory here in 2006 after gaining the pole position, and did exactly the same this year.
''I love the track. This is where my career made a switch and I started winning races,'' Massa said.
Massa beat teammate Kimi Raikkonen by just over two seconds as the Ferrari pair dueled from the opening turn.
Two-time defending Formula One champion Fernando Alonso of McLaren was third and kept alive his chances in the driver's standings after teammate Lewis Hamilton punctured a front tire on the 43rd lap.
Hamilton had been in third place but dropped to fifth.
Hamilton said the tire cost him a place on the podium.
''I was pushing obviously,'' Hamilton said. ''Without a doubt we would have finished third. I still had six laps more fuel than the Ferraris. I was hoping in those six laps I could get Kimi. Then the tire went.''
Hamilton finished the first nine races in the top three. But the Briton has had problems in the last three races, including a crash in qualifying in Germany to come in ninth, a qualifying incident in Hungary -- before going on to win the race -- and now the tire failure.
Alonso was penalized five spots on the starting grid for the Hungarian GP after delaying Hamilton in the pits in the final minutes of qualifying, although Hamilton refused to let Alonso pass him earlier, contrary to McLaren team orders. Alonso finished fourth in the race.
Alonso, who was as far back as sixth in the early stages Sunday, benefited from the blowout.
''If someone told me on lap two you would be on the podium ... I would be very happy,'' Alonso said. ''At the end, the final result is the best thing of the weekend.''
After the 58-lap race, Massa was 2.2 seconds ahead of Raikkonen, with Alonso 26 seconds back. Hamilton was 45 seconds behind Massa. Nick Heidfeld was fourth.
With five races left, Alonso trails Hamilton 84-79 in the overall standings. Massa is third with 69 points and Raikkonen is next with 68.
The Ferraris and McLarens continue to divide the races. In the 12 races so far, Alonso, Hamilton Massa and Raikkonen have won three each.
Massa made a reversal after his last race. He finished 13th in the Hungarian GP on Aug. 5 after a disappointing qualifying run left him at the back of the starting grid.
''Three Grands Prix here, two wins. Can't be better,'' Massa said. ''Starting from pole, good car, difficult race. I managed to keep my concentration.''
At the start Sunday, the two Ferrari drivers went to the top positions with Hamilton third. Alonso was beaten to the first turn by the two BMW-Sauber drivers and was sixth after the first lap. After five laps, he was more than seven seconds from first and, more important, almost five behind Hamilton.
''For sure, the start didn't go as we planned,'' Alonso said. ''To be overtaken by two cars and find yourself in sixth was not great.''
At 10 laps Sunday it was still the two Ferraris ahead of Hamilton, with Alonso about 10 seconds back. Alonso was able to move into fourth past Heidfeld and Robert Kubica at the first pit stop, but he was still losing time.
By 25 laps, Massa was back in front of Raikkonen and Hamilton with Alonso fourth, about 18 seconds behind.
Raikkonen closed to within a second.
''I made a small, small mistake and Kimi closed the gap,'' Massa said. ''Just a small mistake made my life difficult.''
Raikkonen said the result was predictable after Saturday when Massa was first, two places ahead of the Finnish driver.
''In Formula One these days the race is pretty much decided after qualifying,'' Raikkonen said.
Things changed on the 43rd lap when Hamilton was flapping rubber from his shredded front tire while in third place. Hamilton managed to make it to the pits to change the tire, but Alonso moved into third ahead of Heidfeld.
''I saw some bits fly off the tire,'' Hamilton said. ''It was lucky I didn't put the car in the gravel and managed to control it back to the pits as this meant that in the end I only lost two places.''
Renault's Heikki Kovalainen was sixth, followed by Nico Rosberg of Williams and Kubica.
The next race is the Italian Grand Prix on Sept. 9, followed by the Belgian Grand Prix a week later.

Ready to take office by economist

Turkey's Abdullah Gul will soon become president. Then what?

ABDULLAH GUL, Turkey's foreign minister, took another step towards the presidency on Monday August 20th as parliamentarians held a first round of voting for the post. Mr Gul, a pious Muslim whose earlier bid for the job sparked political turmoil, won 341 votes in the 550-member chamber. He fell short of the two-thirds of ballots needed to win the presidency outright in the first round, though he is all but assured of eventual victory. His closest rival, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, a former defence minister fielded by the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), got just 70 votes.
Mr Gul is expected to become president after a third round of voting on August 28th, when a simple majority will suffice. He is backed by his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, which won 341 seats in snap parliamentary polls last month. The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) boycotted Monday's session and claimed that Mr Gul's earlier involvement in Islamist politics posed a threat to the secular system laid down by the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk.

The job of president is partly ceremonial, but the incumbent has influence over politics through his right to block legislation. He may also name judges and veto appointments to the government and is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Mr Gul’s first go at the presidency in April was greeted with mass anti-government rallies called by secularists, including many women who voiced concern that their liberal lifestyles might be threatened. Tensions escalated when the army, which has toppled four governments since 1960, threatened to intervene. His effort came to an end when the constitutional court upheld a claim by the CHP that the parliament lacked a quorum in a first round of balloting. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then called an early general election.
In the event, the AK Party romped back for a second term with nearly 47% of the vote. Four years of robust economic growth, political calm and democratic reforms have kept the public happy. Voters may also have been offering a mandate for Mr Gul’s attempt on the presidency. Fearful of a fresh dust-up with the army, Mr Erdogan at first balked at his colleague's continued presidential ambitions. But Mr Gul persisted and won the backing of the AK's conservative rump led by Bulent Arinc, a former speaker of parliament, forcing Mr Erdogan’s hand. As important, the MHP announced after the elections that its parliamentarians would take part in the vote for president, ensuring there would be a quorum.
Mr Gul says that, as president, he will reach out to all Turks and that he will remain loyal to the secular tenets of the constitution. His four years as foreign minister leave little room for doubt. He was the driving force behind the many reforms that persuaded European Union leaders to open long delayed membership talks with Turkey in 2005. And it was Mr Gul who engineered the defection of fellow moderates from the overtly Islamist Welfare Party which was bullied out of office by the generals in 1997.
His sole handicap appears to be his wife, Hayrunnisa. She wears the Islamic style headscarf that is banned in all government buildings and schools. In a sop to the secularists she is expected to tie it in a more fashionable style. Over time they should grow accustomed to her headgear just as they eventually accepted Mr Erdogan's wife, Emine, who became the first ever prime ministerial spouse to cover her head.
As for relations with the army, there remains scope for more tensions with the ruling politicians. Mr Erdogan is promising to write a new “civilian” constitution to replace the one that was imposed by the generals after their last direct coup in 1980. But Mr Gul is, for now, playing down the prospects of confrontation. It is rumoured that he has already met the chief of general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, in recent days to offer personal assurances that he will not stray from Ataturk’s path, although Mr Buyukanit denies any meeting has taken place. It would seem to be in nobody’s interest to spark fresh political upheaval once again.
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New Turk Parliament Votes on Gul Presidency, Again

ANKARA (Reuters) - Four months after Turkey's military and secular elite blocked Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's presidential bid, a newly elected parliament will make a fresh attempt on Monday to get the former Islamist elected.
The religious-minded AK Party has been strengthened by a convincing win in July's general election, called early to defuse a crisis over the presidency, and Gul is widely expected to be elected this time around despite some fierce opposition.
Monday's vote is the first of up to four rounds and Gul is likely to be elected in the third session on August 28 when he needs only a simple majority -- which the AK Party has.
Before that he needs two thirds of the votes to win, unlikely as the ultra-nationalist opposition MHP has fielded its own candidate, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, and the pro-Kurdish DTP has signaled it will not vote for Gul. Leftist DSP is also fielding its own candidate, Tayfun Icli, state media reported.
The MHP has however made Gul's election more likely, just by agreeing to take part. Blocking the first vote in April was a court ruling that two thirds of parliament had to be present -- impossible amid an opposition boycott.
Meanwhile the secularist army, which undermined the April vote with a sternly worded anti-government statement, has signalled it has said all it plans to say.
The army ousted as recently as 1997 a government in which Gul served because of its perceived Islamism.
Gul says he backs secularism but opposition from the secularist elite remains fierce, in part because his wife wears the Muslim headscarf, as some fear he wants to break down the division between state and religion.
The opposition CHP has said it will boycott Gul's presidential receptions and will again be absent for the vote.
A Gul presidency will make the next government's job easier as it will no longer have to get laws and appointments past President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who has frequently vetoed their legislation, such as a wide-ranging welfare reform.
One of the new president's first tasks will be to approve Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's new cabinet as incumbent Sezer, an arch-secularist, declined to review the list last week.
VOWS IMPARTIALITY
Gul, the mild-mannered English-speaking architect of Turkey's EU bid, spent last week seeking support from civil society groups. He won cautious backing from leading industrialist group TUSIAD, which had previously called for compromise over the presidency.
Gul, who has lived in Saudi Arabia and Britain and has good relations with foreign leaders, has said he will be an impartial president and try to represent all Turks.
He will quit the AK Party, where he has been number two, but commentators say he will need to prove his independence.
"To prove himself independent from the AK Party he may veto some of their measures ... To make sure that he looks independent of the government," said Ayse Ayata, political science professor at Ankara's Middle East Technical University, adding however that he may not do so over important measures.
Gul has said he will continue to support Turkey's EU bid -- which has been struggling since last year -- and Ayata said using his own initiative in foreign affairs could be another way to show distance from his former party colleagues.

Presidential troubles, again by the ecomonist

This time round, Abdullah Gul will surely become Turkey's president—to the annoyance of the army and the secular establishment

THERE was an ineluctable sense of déjà vu this week when Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, declared his intention to stand for president. When Mr Gul, a former Islamist, was first nominated for the post by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in April, a political crisis ensued. The army threatened to intervene because of serious risks to Turkey's secular republic. Days later, the constitutional court upheld a case brought by Deniz Baykal, leader of the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), arguing that a first round of parliamentary voting to elect the president was invalid because of the lack of a quorum. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister and AK Party leader, was forced to withdraw Mr Gul's candidacy and call an early election on July 22nd, ahead of the scheduled date of November 4th.
In the event AK won almost 47% of the vote, a big jump from the 34% that first took it to single-party rule in 2002. This was a crushing defeat for the generals, who refuse to believe Mr Erdogan's repeated assertions that he and his party no longer mix politics with Islam. Magnanimous in victory, Mr Erdogan was swift to assure Turkey's shell-shocked secular elite that he was sensitive to their concerns. He even pledged to seek consensus when nominating a new president. Many took this to mean that he would choose an AK man with a tamer Islamist past—and one whose wife, unlike Hayrunnisa Gul, does not wear the Islamic-style headscarf, which is banned in all government buildings and schools.


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For the army and its backers, the headscarf is an unequivocal symbol of Islamic militancy. To them, a veiled first lady would not only spell the end of Ataturk's cherished republic but also seal the ascendancy of a new, pious bourgeoisie from Turkey's Anatolian hinterland. The army also frets that a President Gul might approve several AK laws that were rejected as unconstitutional by the incumbent, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a fiercely secular judge. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Mr Gul would also have a big say in military and other appointments.
Wary of provoking a fresh confrontation with the generals, Mr Erdogan has tried since the election to douse Mr Gul's presidential ambitions—but he has failed. The question, given his unrivalled authority over AK and his big election win, is why. The other question is how the generals, who have dislodged four elected governments since 1960, will react.
The answer to the first question is now becoming clearer. As Mr Gul himself keeps pointing out, in handing the AK such a big mandate voters were also endorsing his presidential candidacy. Indeed, “Gul for president” was a common refrain at election rallies. The AK has a moral obligation to stand by him, the Gul camp insists.
Several AK bigwigs, notably a former parliamentary speaker, Bulent Arinc, who supported Mr Gul's earlier bid, duly did so again. More important, Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which won 71 seats, said his party would take part in a first round of balloting, giving the AK its prized quorum. With 20 Kurdish nationalist members also pledging to show up, Mr Gul is set to become president, if not in the first or second rounds of balloting, which require a two-thirds majority, then in a third round in late August, when a simple majority will be sufficient.
Few doubt that the affable Mr Gul will make a good president. Unlike the reclusive Mr Sezer, Mr Gul is a sophisticated man who speaks fluent English and has lived abroad. As foreign minister, he was the driving force behind the sweeping reforms that prodded European Union leaders into opening membership talks with Turkey in 2005. Even as he has reached out to Turkey's Arab neighbours and to Iran, Mr Gul has worked hard to restore a friendship with America that was bruised by the Iraq war. “Condi [Rice] likes him and trusts him,” says a senior American official.
Mr Gul also promises that defending secularism will be one of his “basic principles”. He has even hinted at a concession: his wife might soon knot the silk scarf that she winds tightly around her head and neck in a hipper style. Atil Kutoglu, a Vienna-based Turkish fashion designer, has been asked to come up with ideas.
If Turkey is really going Islamic, Mr Gul's supporters wonder, why did Saadet, the only overtly Islamist party, scrape a measly 2% of the vote? Nowadays, the Islamic intelligentsia seems less preoccupied with the veil than with whether it is appropriate for pious female Muslims to wear G-string knickers—because, as one luminary has opined, “they keep women in a permanent state of sexual arousal.”
None of this is likely to impress the generals, who say their views on the presidency remain unchanged. Yet “short of an outright coup there is little they can do [to stop Gul],” observes Soli Ozel, a political scientist at Istanbul's Bilgi University. Mehmet Ali Kislali, one of the rare Turkish journalists with good connections in the general staff, disagrees. “They have other means to make their weight felt,” he has argued in Radikal, a liberal daily. They could boycott presidential functions, as Mr Baykal's CHP has vowed to do. They could scale down their presence in the presidential palace. More drastically still, they could galvanise the courts into launching a case to close down the AK.
Zafer Uskul, a constitutional lawyer (and one of 150 new deputies recruited by Mr Erdogan to replace more militant party members) may have provided them with ammunition. He has opined that Kemalism (Ataturk's ideology) needs to be “expunged” from a new constitution being drafted by AK to replace the one produced by the generals after their most recent direct coup in 1980. This provoked uproar, and Mr Uskul swiftly declared that his words had been “misunderstood”.
Most commentators concur that, given the scale of AK's victory, the courts cannot touch it without leaving their own credibility in tatters. For the same reason it is hard to see the army stepping in directly. So a more likely outcome is that the generals will be forced to lick their wounds and take Mr Gul on his merits. His record suggests they have nothing to fear—if, that is, they truly believe in democracy.

source;http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9657031

Drought in Ankara

Praying for water

Aug 16th 2007 ANKARAFrom The Economist print edition

A water shortage that may reflect bad management as much as drought
THE Vatican's ambassador to Turkey, Monsignor Antonio Lucibello, sees building bridges between Islam and Christianity as one of his duties. Last week, he was on a different mission: imploring God for rain, before a congregation of fellow diplomats.
His pleas, echoed by imams in sermons throughout the capital, have yet to be heard. Ankara is experiencing one of the worst droughts in recent history. The city's 4m residents have suffered protracted water rationing: some have had no running water for ten days. Nerves are stretched, as temperatures hover around 40°C. “My wife stinks, my children stink, I stink,” complained Nezih Tatlici, an accountant who said he hadn't had a bath in over a week.


The city's mayor, Melih Gokcek, faces calls to resign after advising citizens to “take a holiday” and, like him, “wash your hair, not your bodies.” What incenses them is that Mr Gokcek blames the water shortage on climate change, even though Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul, is largely unaffected. There is a drought, but Turkey is a mountainous country with lots of water. Reservoirs feeding Ankara have been allowed to fall to only 4% of capacity.
Critics point to mismanagement of resources and poor planning as the real problem. Mr Gokcek has lavished millions on parks and fountains the city can no longer keep going. In Gaziosmanpasa, an upper-class enclave, rows of grass lawns have been burnt dark brown after municipal bans on the watering of gardens. Stray dogs are dropping dead. Hygiene has become such a concern that hospitals are delaying non-critical surgery. Some embassies have rented hotel rooms so that their staff can have a bath; others have postponed official functions. This week Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, summoned Mr Gokcek to demand an explanation.
The mayor insists that a project to divert water from the nearby Kizilirmak river, supposed to be finished by November, will do the trick. Meanwhile he says the “only solution” is that “the Almighty gives us rain or snow.” A growing number of residents have a better idea: getting rid of Mr Gokcek.

Turkish Presidential Pick Sets Up Clash, Again

ISTANBUL, Aug. 14 — Turkey’s governing party has chosen Abdullah Gul, an economist and a practicing Muslim, as its candidate for president, officials said Monday, a move that places the party and its pious followers on a collision course with Turkey’s secular elite.


The nomination of Mr. Gul, 56, a moderate politician who has pressed for his country’s entry into the European Union, was announced by officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party late on Monday. His confirmation, which is expected in several rounds of parliamentary voting this month, is likely to change the country’s course, with an emerging Islamic middle class overtaking the secular elite who have controlled the Turkish state since its beginning in 1923.

The country’s secular establishment blocked Mr. Gul’s candidacy for the same job this spring, saying that he was too religious to take Turkey’s highest secular post. The move precipitated early elections last month.

Turkey is a member of NATO and a strong American ally, so its stability is important in a troubled region. While its citizens are overwhelmingly Muslim, it is a democracy that is staunchly secular, and its president is at the very heart of that system, controlling appointments of judges, and presiding as commander in chief over the military.

Voting begins next Monday. In that round, Mr. Gul would need 367 votes, two-thirds of the 550-member Parliament, to win approval. If he is not confirmed in two rounds, he will probably win in a third round on Aug. 28, in which, under Turkish law, just 267 votes are needed. His party has 341 seats.

The party is expected to discuss the nomination with other political parties on Tuesday.

“Their insistence on Gul’s nomination, after all of the crisis it caused, shows how determined they are to convert the modern secular Turkish state into a religion-based administration,” said Onur Oymen, deputy chairman of the secular Republican People’s Party, in a telephone interview. “This is not acceptable.”

Secular Turks say the rank and file of Mr. Gul’s party is settling deeply into the Turkish bureaucracy, bringing a religious tinge to the state. The party’s supporters, meanwhile, say it has done more than secular parties to pull Turkey closer to Europe and to modernize the state.

The election last month resulted in a landslide victory for Mr. Gul’s party, which took nearly 50 percent of the vote, the highest proportion in Turkey since the 1960s, and the party appears to have taken that outcome as a mandate to push Mr. Gul for a second time.

But many secular Turks fear for the future of their country if the governing party controls the presidency as well as the prime minister’s post and the speaker of Parliament.

In a conciliatory acceptance speech after the election, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated he would take secular Turks into account when forming the government. But Mr. Gul’s candidacy did not seem to be something the governing party was willing to compromise on.

“Compromise is one thing, and giving in is another,” said Egemen Bagis, a member of Parliament from the governing party.

Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul, and Sabrina Tavernise from Amman, Jordan

Asıl küresel ısınma 2009'da başlayacak

Çevre uzmanları, küresel ısınmanın 2009 yılından sonra artacağı tahmininde bulundular.
Küresel ısınmanın, 21’inci yüzyılda karbon gazı salımının etkisiyle artacağı yönündeki genel uyarının yanında, 2005 yılını takip eden 10 yıl içindeki olasılıklara değinen İngiliz bilim adamlarının raporunda, insanın neden olduğu küresel ısınmadan ziyade, doğal etkenlerin sebep olduğu iklim değişikliği üzerinde duruldu.
Tahminde bulunmak için, El Nino ile okyanus sirkülasyonundaki diğer dalgalanmalarla ısı üzerinde çalışmalarda bulunan uzmanların Science dergisinde yayımlanan raporuna göre, dünya gerçek ısınmayla 2009 yılında tanışacak.
2009'a kadar ise doğal güçler, insanın yol açtığı tahmini ısınmayı dengeleyecek.

yorum yok

Çağları aydınlatan ampul

Edison'un icadından bu yana 120 yıl geçti. Aydınlatma teknolojisinin göz bebeği ampul her geçen gün geliştiriliyor. Bilim insanları, sağlık sorunlarına yol açmayan, çevre dostu ve estetik ampullere ulaşmak için yoğun çaba harcıyorlar.

Thomas Edison'ın ampulü gibi az sayıda buluş, geçen zamanın sınavından alnının akıyla çıktı. Edison, yaklaşık 120 yıl önce, ince bir ipliği vakumda akkor haline getirerek elektrikten ışık üretmeyi öğrenmişti. Günümüzde, milyarlarca insan bu dahiyane buluşla evlerini aydınlatıyor.

Elektronik ürünlerin çağdışı kalma hızı değerlendirildiğinde, inanılmaz bir süreğenlik bu.

Ancak, yeni ışıklandırma teknolojileri ampulün tahtını sallamaya başladı. Elektriğin yalnızca yüzde 5'ini ışığa çeviren ampuller, nüfus ve üretim artışıyla birlikte maliyeti artan enerjiyi tasarruf etmiyor. Bu koşullar altında, ampulün yüz yıldan uzun süren egemenliğinin pabucunun çoktan dama atılmamış olması şaşırtıcı.

Basit teknolojisi ve ucuza mal olması, hem yoksul hem de zengin ülkelerde kurulmuş bol sayıdaki fabrikayla birleşince ampul yaygınlaştı. Buna karşın, daha verimli şekilde ve göze hoş gelen ışığı üreten donanımlar üretmek kolay değil.
1930'larda ampule seçenek olarak geliştirilen 'deşarj' teknolojisini hesaba katalım. Bu sistemde, bir tungsten telini elektrikle ısıtıp akkor haline getirmek yerine, ampulün içindeki gazdan ya da buhardan elektrik geçiriliyordu: Genellikle de, neon gazı ya da sodyum veya cıva buharı.

Böyle bir lamba ampulden altı kat verimli. Oysa, deşarj teknolojisi hoş olmayan mavimsi ya da sarı ışığıyla estetik bir uygulama değildi ve cadde aydınlatmasıyla sınırlı kaldı. Deşarj lambalarının bir uzantısı olan floresanlar, teknolojiyi bir adım ileriye götürdü. Cıva buharıyla dolu bir cam tüpün içi, morötesi ışığı emen ve enerjisini görünür ışığa dönüştüren fosforla kaplanıyordu.

Floresanlar ampullerden on kat etkin, dört kat uzun ömürlü; ama sert ve titrek ışığı ile cıva buharının kanser yapıcı etkisi, özellikle birincil müşteri olan ev tüketicisini soğuttu. Hatta 80'li yıllarda, konfeksiyon ürünlerinin renginin anlaşılmasını önleyen beyaz ışığın deri kanseri yaptığına ilişkin dedikodular yaygınlaşmıştı.