Julie Anne Friend, director of global safety and security at Northwestern University, said new freelance reporters generally will not have a security team to provide briefings on operating in dangerous areas, leaving reporters to have to find ways to educate themselves on how to undertake risk assessment. They also do not have a news organization to rely on for pre-travel hostile environment training, for safety checks while reporting or support if captured.

Frank Smyth, an expert on journalists’ security, knows all too well the risks of reporting in conflict countries. Smyth has covered armed conflicts, organized crime and human rights abuses in El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, Colombia, Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Jordan and Iraq, where, in 1991, he was imprisoned for 18 days, according to his Global Journalist Security website.

Smyth started Global Journalist Security in November 2011 to provide safety information and training in conflict zones for news organizations, freelance journalists and staff at non-governmental organizations and other media personnel.

Smyth also created an online comprehensive journalist security guide that can be found at the Committee to Protect Journalists website. It contains information such as basic preparedness, assessing and responding to risk, technology security, armed conflict, and stress reactions.

In addition to using these safety measures, Friend said reporters traveling to dangerous areas should also make sure to secure health benefits.

“If you’re going to have a problem, its most likely going to be a health problem,” Friend said.

Friend said in the midst of shooting a story, accidents – such as falling down while shooting video or taking photos – are commonplace.

“The most important thing every reporter should do is make sure they have an appropriate international health insurance plan,” she said.

U.S. health insurance plans generally do not provide adequate coverage while overseas, Friend said.

The golden hour evolved over more than a decade of conflict, but only recently has the concept been verified through a long-term study conducted by the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and the Center for Translational Injury Research at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. The study found that over the course of the conflict in Afghanistan, median transport time of traumatically injured patients improved from 90 to 43 minutes. The study also found that, because of this dedication to rapid transport, the fatality rate for traumatically injured troops went from 13.7 percent to 7.6 percent.

According to Brig. Gen. Kory Cornum, Air Mobility Command Surgeon of the Air Force and an orthopedic surgeon, the golden hour rules is one of a number of tools and medical practices developed during combat that have proven useful in and out of the war zone, throughout history.

During World War II, according to an analysis done by Dr. Kendall McNabney in 1981, it took roughly 10 hours to transport an injured soldier to definitive treatment. With each war, the time decreased.

McNabney credited use of helicopters as ambulances as well as better blood programs, staffing, facilities and organizational structure as factors contributing to the survival of injured troops in Vietnam.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, R. Adams Cowley was the first to popularize the term “golden hour.”

During the Vietnam War, the Army sponsored Cowley to study shock trauma in patients. Through his study, the idea of the golden hour became a theme in successfully treating trauma patients.

The Medical Center quoted Cowley as saying, “There is a golden hour between life and death. If you are critically injured you have less than 60 minutes to survive. You might not die right then; it may be three days or two weeks later — but something has happened in your body that is irreparable.”

According to Cornum, tourniquets and blood therapy are two other tools that started with the military but moved to civilian medicine.

According to Cornum, massive bleeding – known as hemorrhage – kills most people with traumatic injuries. However, tourniquets – used to limit blood flow to an injured and bleeding limb, for example – were not routinely used in civilian or military trauma centers until about two decades ago.

“Twenty-five years ago, we all were taught – in Girls Scouts and Boys Scouts and in first aid training in the military and you name it — that a tourniquet was only to be used as a last resort,” Cornum said.

Tourniquets were a last resort when medical transport was less efficient because applying a tourniquet for a long period means no blood, and with it oxygen, is being delivered to tissues below the tourniqut. This eventually kills all tissue below where it is applied; in the past, amputations were the result.

“Now everybody in their combat lifesaving kit…  there’s a couple of tourniquets in there,” Cornum said.

The Medal of Honor began in 1861. The majority of the medals awarded are to Civil War military men according to the Congressional Medal of Honor official website.

This year, President Barack Obama awarded the medal to Capt. Florent Groberg. He moved a suicide bomber away from military personnel in Afghanistan by grabbing him and throwing himself on the man seconds before the explosion.

While on a mission with Afghans, Groberg noticed a man walking backwards towards his group. He approached the man and discovered that he was wearing a vest with explosives. That is when Groberg took the man away from the soldiers and threw him on the ground. The bomb detonated and Groberg was severely injured.

“Flo was thrown some 15 or 20 feet and was knocked unconscious,” Obama said.

Groberg’s family and friends accompanied him at the ceremony. Among those present were the families of two of his friends who were killed in another attack in the Middle East.

Groberg stood in front of the crowd and fought back tears as the president shared his story.

“Flo says that was the worst day of his life,” Obama said.

Groberg is the 10th living recipient who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

House Speaker Paul Ryan orders flag to be lowered to half-staff in light of Paris attacks. (Sara Shouhayib/Medill NSJI)

But Beirut, nicknamed the “Paris of the Middle East,” didn’t receive nearly as much attention the previous day when more than 40 people were killed and hundreds were injured in twin bombings in the Burj el-Barajneh area, located off a main highway leading to Beirut’s airport, for which the Islamic State also took credit.

This was also the case in Baghdad on Friday, the same day as the Paris attacks, when 26 people died in a roadside bombing and a suicide bombing carried out by ISIS, another name for the Islamic State.

“I think Western media are naturally inclined to cover events in the West more than events outside the West,” said J.M. Berger, a fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the new book, “ISIS: The State of Terror.”

“The Paris attack was obviously more deadly, and more unusual than the attack in Beirut, but in my opinion, the Beirut bombing deserves more attention than it has received,” he said. “That said, many Western news outlets have been covering it.”

As a Vox.com article by Max Fisher noted, “The New York Times covered it. The Washington Post, in addition to running an Associated Press story on it, sent reporter Hugh Naylor to cover the blasts and then write a lengthy piece on their aftermath. The Economist had a thoughtful piece reflecting on the attack’s significance. CNN, which rightly or wrongly has a reputation for least-common-denominator news judgment, aired one segment after another on the Beirut bombings. Even the Daily Mail, a British tabloid most known for its gossipy royals coverage, was on the story.”

However, the widespread coverage of Beirut was delayed. It wasn’t until bloggers and independent social media users started noting that Beirut wasn’t getting enough attention that news media increased their coverage.

The series of attacks in Paris at a soccer stadium, concert venue, restaurants and a bar, although not independently confirmed, have been claimed by the Islamic State, just like the attacks in Baghdad and Beirut.

Berger noted that Friday’s carnage in Paris “ is the first such attack of this type and scale we’ve seen in Europe since the Madrid bombings in 2004, and of course, the first such attack from ISIS,” which did argue for major media attention.

Earlier this year, al Shabab, an al-Qaida offshoot based in Somalia, staged an attack at Garissa University in Kenya, killing 147, but the social media reaction was not nearly as widespread.

Profile pictures on Facebook were not widely stained in the colors of Kenya’s flag as they have been for France.

Many took to Twitter when House Speaker Paul Ryan had the Capitol flag flown at half-staff “out of respect and solidarity … in honor of the victims of the Paris attacks” to ask why the Baghdad and Beirut victims were not being recognized as well.

However Monday, the UN Security Council did observe a minute of silence in tribute to all terrorism victims.

The most popular trends on Facebook in regard to Paris in addition to the tri color photo stain of the French flag, are the Eiffel tower peace sign and statuses reflecting sympathy while using hash tags such as “#parisattacks” and “#prayforparis.”

President Barack Obama, during a joint White House news conference with French President Francois, Hollande, noted that refugees entering the United States go through a rigorous screening process, a reference to claims that at least one of the terrorists involved in the recent Paris attacks entered that country hidden among Syrian refugees.

“Nobody who sets foot in America goes through more screening than refugees,” Obama said. “As Francois has said, our humanitarian duty to help desperate refugees and our duty to our security—those duties go hand in hand.”

Keeping Syrian refugees out of the U.S., on grounds that they could be ISIS terrorists, has been a big subject for 2016 presidential candidates. However a House bill that passed last Thursday to suspend a refugee program for Syrian and Iraqi refugees garnered 47 Democrat votes as well. Many are concerned about the vetting process, while others cite the need to prioritize which refugees to admit, such as persecuted Christians in the Syrian region.

“We have to be concerned about the safety of the people of the United States,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher , R-Calif.,, during a recent joint Homeland Security Committee hearing. “If it means prioritizing and making sure that we do differentiate and say the Christians that are now the most vulnerable are the ones that are going to have the most priority, let’s go for it.”

Obama has said he would veto the bill.

The New York Times recently released an easy-to-read infographic detailing the vetting process for refugees into 20 steps. It consists of multiple security checks, interviews, referrals and fingerprint screenings.

Syrian refugees undergo additional steps, including review by a Citizenship and Immigration Services refugee specialist. While France is preparing to take in 30,000 Syrian refugees, it is widely reported that the United States has taken no more than 2,000 Syrian migrants since the civil war started in 2011.

A visual explanation of the process can provide sound information and clarity to Americans who have opinions on allowing refugees into the country but who don’t know what current restrictions are.

White House Press Secretary discusses national security after Islamic State attacks. (Sean Froelich/Medill).

WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that no amount of U.S. military power will solve the chaos in Syria.

Earnest answered questions regarding President Barack Obama’s recent and upcoming meetings with world leaders to discuss how the Syrian civil war and threats posed by the Islamic State are being confronted.

Earnest assured reporters that international resources are being funneled together in order to meet the current U.S. plan of “degrading and defeating ISIL.”

“The success of this mission is dependent on 65 nations coming together, recognizing the common interest they have here and dedicating significant resources,” Earnest said.

Obama meets with French President Francois Hollande Tuesday as part of the international outreach.

Reporters asked Earnest about the ongoing efforts to snuff out terrorist threats in Belgium, which is currently on high alert against potential attacks following the massacre in Paris.

Earnest was mum on safety procedures in Belgium to ensure their secrecy, but suggested that security improvements Europe can make it easier for those allies to better defend their own national security.

Earnest said it is important to expand intelligence sharing within the European Union and with the U.S.

“That is certainly something we are committed to,” Earnest said. “And we are committed to helping our allies in Europe deal with this rather urgent threat.”

Congress voted last week to increase the security measures for Syrian refugees coming into the U.S. due to GOP fears that Islamic State operatives would sneak into the country.

“I think those who voted to further encumber the refugee process are accountable for their vote…it’s not likely to do much to improve the national security of the United States.”

by PresidenciaRD/Flickr
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

WASHINGTON — Whether the historic meeting between the presidents of China and Taiwan earlier this month will have a lasting impact depends on whether Taiwan’s next president is willing to accept the “One China” concept, according to a leading political science expert in Taiwan.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, a pro-china leader who will leave office after the next election in January, met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore 66 years after the civil war in China separated the two sides.

“The Ma-Xi meeting is only the first step to establish the dialogue platform between the leaders of Taiwan and China,” Chien-wen Kou, a politics professor at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, wrote in an email.

During his presidency, Ma pushed for closer ties with the mainland, including expanding trade and allowing more Chinese tourists and students to visit and study in Taiwan. In 2010, the two governments signed an economic pact to reduce tariffs.

“If the new president of Taiwan does not follow Ma’s footsteps and China shows no more goodwill in many issues, then the Ma-Xi meeting will be only a historical event without lasting impact on cross-straits relations,” said Kou, who regularly is interviewed about relations between the two sides.

However, opposition leader Tsai Ing-wen, the leading presidential candidate in the 2016 election in Taiwan, is more hostile to China.

She said the only result of the Ma-Xi meeting was “the use of politics to limit the choices of the Taiwanese public regarding cross-strait relations on an international stage,” according to Taipei Times.

She blamed Ma for not achieving any of the three goals she had hoped for: “Confirming the ability of the 23 million people of Taiwan to make their own choices, establishing that there would be no political preconditions in the development of cross-strait relations and ensuring equal footing and dignity in cross-strait relations,” Taipei Times reported.

The political preconditions she referred to are in the 1992 Consensus or the “One China principle,” which was the term used after a 1992 meeting between representatives of China and Taiwan. Ma’s Nationalist party and the Communist Party recognize the “One “hina” consensus, but Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party denies the consensus defining China exists.

“The meeting sends a strong message to the next president of Taiwan (most likely Tsai Ing-wen,), not the incumbent president, that the meetings of the leaders of Taiwan and China are all right if he or she accepts the 1992 Consensus,” Kou said.

Ma has advocated a meeting between leaders of Taiwan and mainland China for several years, ut Xi did not accept the proposal till now, probably in reaction to the likely victory of Tsai’s DPP in January, according to Kou.

“Xi wanted to stabilize cross-straits relations so that he could concentrate on other domestic and international challenges,” Kou explained.

“The stabilization of cross-straits relations is consistent with the U.S.’s national interests,” Kou wrote, “However, I do not think that the U.S. wants to see a situation in which Taiwan stands too close to China.”

Jerome A. Cohen, adjunct senior fellow for Asian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an article that ”the U.S. government will undoubtedly want to push back at Xi’s attempt to exclude Washington from the Taiwan puzzle, as part of Beijing’s effort to reduce American influence in Asia generally.”

China-Taiwan timeline

1949 – Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party of China forms its own government in Taiwan after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists

1971 – Taiwan loses its seat at the UN to China

1979 – United States develops diplomatic relations with China and moves its embassy from Taiwan to Beijing

1987 – Taiwan allows soldiers to visit their families in mainland China

1993 – First talk between China and Taiwan is held in Singapore

2005 – China passes anti-secession law authorizing use of force if Taiwan declares independence

2008 – Taiwan’s vice president-elect and China’s commerce minister hold talks on economic cooperation

2010 – China and Taiwan sign an economic pact to reduce tariffs and commercial barriers between them 2014 – Students and civic groups protest the trade pact with China, arguing it would hurt Taiwan’s economy and leave it vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing

Retired Army Staff Sergeant, Alfredo “Freddy” De Los Santos awarded the 40th Marine Corps Marathon, 1st place hand cyclist trophy. (Angela G. Barnes/Medill NSJI)

De Los Santos, born in the Dominic Republic and now a resident of Hopewell, New York, was one of 200-hand cyclists, who showed their strength and determination in the marathon. He said his victory wasn’t easy.

“I trained six days a week, between 40 and 60 miles every day,” said the 44-year-old champion. “…to be able to compete in the Marine Corps Marathon despite my disabilities…I love it.”

Elsie Moore, a licensed clinical social worker and program manager for the Transition and Care Management Program at the Washington VA Medical Center, said specialty hand bikes have helped many maimed soldiers.

“Adaptive sports have been around a long time,” she said. “But it certainly made a boost when these soldiers came back severely wounded and couldn’t do things the way they normally use to do.”

Hand cycling, an adaptive sport, is a human-power tricycle operated by the arms instead of the legs. This allows lower-body disabled persons the same functionality as on a two-wheel bike. This unit has three wheels to support the cyclist: two-rear wheels and one powered steerable front wheel.

De Los Santos lost part of his right leg below the knee on Oct. 20, 2008, when his Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while he was serving in a Special Operations Command in Iraq.

“It’s kind of weird…I always feel like this is the best thing that ever happened to me,” said De Los Santos. “It never crossed my mind to get into sports and now I’m in the best shape of my life.”

De Los Santos used the adaptive sport to deal the pain of losing part of his right leg, but said the service prepared him for this new journey.

“Somehow as being military you’re mentally prepared for something like this,” De Los Santos said. “So all you have to do is transition.”

Moore, who has worked with the VA more than 20 years, said while the VA’s Transition Care Management program provides a variety of services to wounded soldiers; many of them have a difficult time dealing with a loss of this magnitude.

“Some people can feel very bitter toward the losses that they have,” Moore said. “Those who are going to do best are those who are more flexible and open to therapy, treatment, counseling and mentorship.”

Although De Los Santos still has physical problems, he said his injury has not defined him.

“This is so rewarding,” he said again, “to be able to incorporate myself in society, physically, mentally and socially…I love it.”

“A large majority of amputees that I come in contact with, they’re often very positive,” Moore said. “They are “gun-ho” about what their goals are.”

“This is a way of life,” De Los Santos said. “Life is what you make out of it.”

De Los Santos hopes to qualify for next year’s 2016 Marine Corps Marathon. He finished the 2015 race in one hour-thirteen minutes.

While covering a committee hearing on Transportation Security Administration reform, a deputy communications director, Matthew Ballard, informed me of a recent report from the House Homeland Security Committee analyzing the unprecedented growth in the number of foreigners traveling to Syria and other terrorist areas across the globe.

The increase is occurring despite U.S. air strikes killing over 10,000 ISIS combatants. According to the report, “When the strikes began, counterterrorism officials estimated the total number of extremists was around 15,000…Today the figure stands at 25,000-plus foreign fighters.”

The flow of foreign fighters continued despite U.S. airstrikes, which numbered more than 5,000 since August 2014. Fighters continue to stream in from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Western countries including the U.K., France and the U.S.

The number of foreign fighters traveling from America is substantially smaller than a country like Tunisia (with over 5,000 recorded travelers) but also is the group the task force knows the most about. It found that American fighters are largely influenced by the ISIS global branding through its heavy social media presence. ISIS, unlike previous terrorist organizations, uses full advantage of the ability to craft and hone its own message with Twitter, Tumblr and other platforms while editing “Hollywood-style” videos illustrating its violent acts and power in the region.

The report finds that the pervasiveness of this social media effort is not simply ISIS top leaders sending out tweets from Iraq and Syria but that is channeled through its foreign fighters to their home countries, leading to more recruits. The grassroots nature of the foreign fighter recruitment poses an immense challenge for governments including the U.S. to monitor and prevent their citizens from joining ISIS or returning to recruit and carry out attacks in their respective countries.

Online recruitment for ISIS often moves from public to private channels. For instance, potential recruits watch publicly available “seminars” on social platforms are then directed to encrypted services such as Telegram. The government has yet to figure out an effective way to stop the online recruitment other than private citizens, family members and friends who have tipped off 75 percent of arrest cases related to potential U.S.-born foreign fighters.

Maj. Marcus Byrne of the United States Army is honoring McClung and other dead soldiers during this weekend’s race. He says she is one of the people he would think about when his training became harder.

“Major McClung was out on the front lines trying to tell the story of what we were doing in Iraq and how the soldiers and marines were operating out there and what we were trying to do to turn Ramadi around,” Byrne said.

In it’s 40^th year, the race honored fallen soldiers. McClung was officially honored in 2013, but her memory continues through Byrne’s participation this year.

“That is something that we need to think about as well that the Marines past and the Marines present that are still doing the fighting,” Byrne said about how Marines motivate him.

Although Byrne is in the Army, Marines have held a special place in his experience as a member of the military.

“I’ve done three combat deployments. My first deployment I actually served with Marines,” Byrne said. “Both Army and Marines, we share land combat, and having fought with them before, I thought I’d run the Marine Corps Marathon just to be with the Marines.”

McClung was activel in planning the annual marathons so when she was deployed she worked to bring the race to Iraq, with the first marathan there held in 2006. It was one of her last races; she died on Dec. 6, 2006.

“It was an IED that hit their vehicle and killed everyone on board. It hit the brigade hard because she was a very hard working public affairs officer trying to shine a light on the actions that were taking,” Byrne said.

“One of my former soldiers was on the convoy with her. He was just in a different unit at the time. His name was Specialist Vincent James Pomante.”

Thousands gathered this weekend to honor past and present Marines in their own way. McClung was the first female Marine officer killed in Iraq. She was active in ensuring that stories about military efforts in the Middle East were reaching audiences in the United States.

Honoring his colleagues and finishing in less than five hours were Byrne’s goals. According to the Marine Corps Marathon’s official site, Byrne finished the race in four hours and 53 minutes.