Low turnout provides win
for established parties


When there is low voter turnout, the political party with the best organization usually wins.

That is what happened Sunday where in some cantons the turnout was as low as 13 percent. The faithful of the Partido Liberación Nacional turned out and that party took the bulk of the 80 mayoral races, according to preliminary figures by the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones.

There were few surprises. In San José Johnny Araya Monge won a third term. He has served 20 years and will continue to serve until 2016. He won despite disclosures earlier in the year that he had not been living in the central canton of San José.

Araya's challengers, Gloria Valerín of Accion Ciudadana and Óscar López of Partido Accesibilidad Sin Exclusión battled for a distant second place with about 15 percent of the vote each. Araya appears to have accumulated about 60 percent of the vote.

Unidad Social Cristiana, another long-running political party, garnered nine mayoral races.

Local parties won the mayor's race in Curridabat and Escazú. In San Pedro the candidate of Renovación Costarricense won.

There were two unusual developments during the day. In Matina men in a vehicle fired shots in the direction of a voting location. Officials blamed drunkenness instead of an effort to disrupt the vote.

In Pococí the Tribunal de Elecciones delayed the vote for one week because some persons who were to handle voting failed to show up.

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Sensitive information about customers’ credit cards remains unencrypted and vulnerable on Radiográfica Costarricense’s Web site.

Credit card numbers relating to recent automatic payment operations are recorded and displayed. Also retained are the card’s issuing bank, expiration date, and three-digit security code. The redesigned page containing that information has the button for log-out partially under another graphic element in some browsers. This makes it easy to inadvertently leave the personal data screen open and accessible to even a relatively unsophisticated hacker.

Sometimes the log-out button does not work.

The page in question is the one customers use to pay their monthly Internet charge or recharge their pre-paid Internet access card.

RACSA is a subsidiary of the Instituto Costarricence de Electricidad, and for much of the history of the Internet in Costa Rica was the monopoly operator. It is still the supplier of last resort for those unable to get a broadband line and depending on dial-up service. It is also the present supplier of WiFi and Wimax in the country. Press reports suggest RACSA will eventually be subsumed into ICE.

RACSA also provides internet feeder services for CableTica and other smaller cable television providers. Amnet now has its own internet connection.

Messages seeking comment on RACSA’s security policies to its webmaster and press agent were not immediately answered.

Sediment is survival key
for inundated wetlands


Many coastal wetlands worldwide — including several on the U.S. Atlantic coast — may be more sensitive than previously thought to climate change and sea-level rise projections for the 21st century.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists made this conclusion from an international research modeling effort published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Scientists identified conditions under which coastal wetlands could survive rising sea level.

Using a rapid sea-level rise scenario, most coastal wetlands worldwide will disappear near the end of the 21st century. In contrast, under the slow sea-level rise projection, wetlands with low sediment availability and low tidal ranges are vulnerable and may drown. However, in the slow sea-level rise projection, wetlands with higher sediment availability would be more likely to survive.

The U.S. Geological Survey scientists specifically identified the sediment levels and difference between high and low tide necessary for marshes to survive sea-level rise. As water floods a wetland and flows through its vegetation, sediment is carried from upstream and deposited on the wetland’s surface, allowing it to gain elevation. High tidal ranges allow for better sediment delivery, and the higher sediment concentrations in the water allow wetlands to build more elevation.

Find out what the papers said today in Spanish By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Here is the section where you can scan short summaries from the Spanish-language press. If you want to know more, just click on a link and you will see and longer summary and have the opportunity to read the entire news story on the page of the Spanish-language newspaper but translated into English. Translations may be a bit rough, but software is improving every day. When you see the Summary in English of news stories not covered today by A.M. Costa Rica, you will have a chance to comment. This is a new service of A.M. Costa Rica called Costa Rica Report. Editor is Daniel Woodall, and you can contact him HERE!

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