Florian Stoffel, florian.stoffel@uni-konstanz.de PRIMARY
Fabian Fischer, fabian.fischer@uni-konstanz.de
Student Team: no (PhD Students)
Analytic Tools Used:
Approximately how many hours were spent working on this submission in total? 18 - 20
May we post your submission in the Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository after VAST Challenge 2014 is complete? Yes
Video vc14mc1.avi (XVid)
MC1.1 – Provide a visual representation of the structure of the Protectors of Kronos network, with supporting evidence.
Example Analysis of POK leaders. On the left, the EGO-Network of the pok leader node can be seen.
On the right, we applied a filter on the node type, which filters out all non-persons.
These candidates were examined using the connected articles out of the graph.
POK was founded in 1997.
The first leader, Henk Bodrogi, comes from a family of farmers, which could be a motivation to fight against environmental pollution of the country. In addition, his wife got ill because of poisened water from the river.
The illness of his wife and the continued pollution of water by the industry are the main motivation for the POK movement.
The fact, that in the beginning Carmine Osvaldo was co-leading POK together with Bodrogi, suggests that in the beginning POK was purely environmental motivated and not an underground movement, which we assume has typically only one leader.
After '99, we found no further evidence of Osvaldo.
This could indicate a shift of POK towards an underground movement.
In the beginning the number of members seems to be quite low.
In 1998, the the death of Juliana Vann, a ten year old girl, caused by "leukemia due to with benzene poisoning from gas drilling operations", leads to an increase of members and increase the publicity POK recieves.
An official refered to them as only a minority which "is against economic growth" in general.
POK almost disappeared until 2009, when their carismatic leader Elian Karel died in prison in mid 2009.
Until today, POK seems to be able to mobilize hundreds of people for protests.
The death of Elian Karel could be a starting point of increasing in and by POK.
MC1.2 – Describe the events of January 20-21, 2014. What is the timeline of events?
Please limit your response to no more than ten images and 500 words.
On January 20th, a number of GAStech executives were kidnapped. There were on the way from GAStech Kronos HQ to Kronos Capitol. It is unclear who kidnapped them and what the reasons were. On January 21th at 12:00, POK releases a statement demanding $20 million ransom.
In the timline, time is given approximately, because it is based on news releases.
The following aliases are used:
| Start | End | Event | Location | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00 | breakfast with Gt executives | GKHQ | |||
| 08:00 | 10:00 | Gt executives meeting | GKHQ | ||
| 10:18 | fire alarm, building evacuation | GKHQ | |||
| 10:20 | helicopter leaves | GKHQ | |||
| 10:25 | AFD arrives | GKHQ | |||
| 10:50 | Gt employee states that the fire alarm was a bomb threat | GKHQ | |||
| 10:52 | Gt CEO arrives | Kronos Capitol | validated at 11:23 | ||
| 11:45 | employees re-enter GKHQ AFD offical: "false fire alarm, no planned drill" |
GKHQ | |||
| 11:46 | AFD packing gear and leaving | GKHQ | |||
| 12:20 | APD arrives | GKHQ | unspecified emergency (police scanner) | ||
| 12:25 | first report of missing Gt executives | Kronos Capitol | with names | ||
| 12:40 | more police arrives | GKHQ | some with light and siren | ||
| 13:25 | 13:50 | media try to call Gt executives | no one was available | ||
| 13:45 | confirmation of missing employees | GTHQ | no statement from GKHQ | ||
| 14:00 | Gt sensior security executive from Thethys arrives | GKHQ | |||
| 14:30 | employees are allowed to leave | GKHQ | |||
| 14:30 | jet leaves | AA | later confirmed that a delegation from a foreign company considering investment in Kronos were the passengers | ||
| 15:05 | police cars start to leave | GKHQ | no light or sirens | ||
| 15:35 | Gt employees mentioning "shadowy, odd acting" people in black in the meeting room in the morning | GKHQ | at 17:10 the black people were confirmed to be the breakfast caterers | ||
| 16:25 | Gt employee confirms the kidnapping | GKHQ | employee got the information from APD | ||
| 17:21 | breakfast caterers leave the building | GKHQ | |||
| 17:30 | POK are suspected to be the kidnappers | GKHQ | information from unofficial police source | ||
| 17:50 | employee states that the executives left GKHQ in the morning | GKHQ | suggest the kidnapping did not happen in GKHQ | ||
| 18:30 | jet arrives, passengers were taken directly to GKHQ | AA, GKHQ | |||
| 19:00 | last employee leaves | GKHQ | was interrogated for hours because of the same family name than POK members (Vann) | ||
| 19:30 | APD releases statement that 14 Gt executives are missing, APD thinks they are still on Kronos | APD-HQ | |||
| 20:00 | speaker tells Kronos President has been moved to a secure location | Kronos Capitol | |||
| 22:00 | Thethys law enforcement officials and staff from Thethyn Ministry of Foreign Affairs arrives to assist APD | AA, APD-HQ | |||
| 23:55 | AFD Captain: "the fire alarm was false and GKHQ is safe" |
| Start | End | Event | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | APD press conference, revised number of missing employees to ten | |||
| 10:16 | Gt spokesman confirms that Gt CEO is back in Thethys | GTHQ | ||
| 12:00 | statement from POK, confirms kidnapping of Gt executives, demand $20 million ransom | no details in the statement Journalist Petrus Gerhard was taken to an unknown location to get the statement |
MC1.3 – Identify at least two possible explanations why the GAStech employees may be missing. What evidence do you have to support each of these explanations?
Please limit your response to no more than three additional images and 200 words.