Why Are They Drugging The Students?

 by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The last few years have blown wide open a scandal that has long existed but is not that well known aside from specialists. The problem is the collaboration between pharmaceutical companies, government regulators, and the medical industry. The problem is so vast that it is hardly describable in a short article.

It turns out that the ineffective COVID shots were just the beginning. As far as we know and have discovered in the course of investigations, the shot was developed quickly as a countermeasure to distract from the problem of a lab leak. The world’s population was held hostage for a year and more while the inoculation was rolled out. But once deployed, it became obvious that it could not actually block infection or stop the spread. So everyone got the bug anyway, and we are left with tremendous damage caused by the shots themselves.

I described this short history to Dr. Drew Pinsky, the famed addiction doctor who now has a popular video podcast. He found no fault with my scenario as mapped above. He immediately added that this has many parallels with the opioid crisis that led him into public advocacy. The pharma companies advertised some miracle drugs to fix pain with no risk of addiction.

The frenzy to prescribe was so intense that some doctors even feared penalties for not prescribing. The result of course was a disastrous addiction crisis that continues to this day. Unlike vaccine companies, the producers were not indemnified against payouts for harms, and as much as $50 billion ended up going to victims just last year. The numbers are mind-boggling.

Just when you think you have reached the bottom of this problem, new information comes along. Last night I was privileged to attend a talk by Sheila Matthews-Gallo who founded AbleChild, an organization that advocates for child rights against forced medicalization. Why would such a thing be needed? As it turns out, many if not most kids in public schools today face this threat daily. They can be identified as having ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

It turns out that there is nothing proven chemically to constitute ADHD. It is entirely a diagnosis applied based on behavior as identified throughout a checklist questionnaire. The checklist is about fidgeting, forgetting, boredom, finishing tasks, various acting up, expressions of frustrations, and so on. In other words, what we have here is a list of all the signs you might expect when boys in particular are told to sit perfectly still at a desk for months and years and complete tasks assigned to them by some authority figure.

With this kind of diagnosis, you are likely to rope in a vast number of kids, particularly the exceptional ones and those once considered to be “gifted and talented.” As it turns out, there is a vast industry working today to pathologize perfectly normal behavioral traits. It hits boys in particular very hard because, in general, they mature more slowly than girls and tend toward behavioral resistance to environmental adaptivity relative to girls.

For more on this amazing reality, see “The ADHD Fraud,” an eye-opening book.

What could be the purpose of such a diagnosis? You guessed it: there are drugs for this supposed problem. They have various names: Ritalin (methylphenidate), Adderall (amphetamine), Dexmethylphenidate, Lisdexamfetamine, Clonidine, and Atomoxetine. Not even one of them has been proven to be a chemical fix for any biological abnormality. They are all behavioral-adjustment drugs; that is, psychotropic drugs; that is, narcotics for kids.

Millions of kids take them, as many as 13 percent of teens. The rate grows higher in the college population. Some one in three adults are taking psychiatric meds. It’s getting worse. It starts in school.

Listening to all of this, I found myself astounded. And yet, in some ways, it fits with everything else we know. We have an industry here that is in a tight working relationship with government institutions like public schools, plus regulators, plus medical authorities that are throwing drugs at people with the promise of miracles but with results that actually ruin lives.

Think of how different your school years would have been if you had developed a drug addiction and lived off psychotropic meds from the age of 7. I was fortunately spared such a fate. But millions of kids today cannot say the same. It’s utterly astonishing. It strikes me that this is a scandal just waiting to be blown wide open.

Among the related factors, as RFK, Jr. has been pointing out in public lately, is the odd relationship between school shootings and the wide distribution of these drugs. Many cases we know about already but the medical records of others are being withheld, even though the public is more and more understanding that the real problem is not guns but pharmacological products. And yet the activists themselves are entirely focused on taking away guns rather than looking more deeply.

I have had personal experience with young adults who are addicted to Adderall. In many ways, when you are a college student, it seems like a miracle drug. In college, discipline over the use of time recedes into a low priority. Instead the demand is to turn in long papers on deadline, memorize vast material you can spit out on a test and forget the next day, and otherwise stay intensely focused sporadically. For many students, this drug is exactly what the doctor ordered: it permits hyper-focused all-nighters followed by a day or two of feeling like a zombie but no one notices.

I’ve known many people who develop addictions, not only physical ones but psychological ones: life without the drug seems dull by comparison and who wants that? These students carry this over into professional life and attempt the same pattern. They can work all day and stay up all night and achieve something that seems mind-blowing but not quite what you asked for. You ask for fixes and they don’t happen. In fact, you don’t hear from them for days after until they reemerge with no memory of the work they did. This pattern repeats itself.

I gradually came to learn that the real problem was the drugs. I concluded that I would rather have a moderately productive employee who at least had a steady pattern of labor and a mild recall of skills that could be built up over time. The issue is that when hiring someone, it’s not quite kosher to ask such questions as: what drugs do you take? You end up guessing, and sometimes guessing wrong.

I’m telling you from long experience that these drugs are a catastrophe for professional life. No one should ever take them. That’s my considered opinion in any case, and I frequently warn college students against them. And what’s true for college kids is thousands of times more so for high school and grade school. It’s a complete scandal that these drugs are given out like candy to school kids. Parents have every right and obligation to resist.

It’s all the more astonishing to learn, as I did last night, that there never was any science to the diagnosis of ADHD, any more than there was any science behind social distancing. It’s all made up to service the state and its adjacent players in the private sector who benefit from various mandates that somehow always end in drugging the population. The whole thing astounds me.

Think about the bigger picture. We’ve created these public schools, force the kids to attend them, ban them from any remunerative work, shove boys and girls together, impose uniform curricula as if every student learns at the same pace, take away discretion from teachers, and saddle the institutions with massive bureaucracies. When the kids don’t take well to the environment, we call them mentally ill and drug them up in ways from which state-connected pharma companies can profit.

This level of cruelty is really baked into the system. It’s a wonder any civilized society could ever accept it. And once you discover the fullness of the scandal about what’s going on, you have to start asking other questions about weight-loss drugs, other vaccines and miracle cures, and the entire machinery of allopathic medicine itself. Yes, the rabbit hole is very deep.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-are-they-drugging-students

Estrogen-Only Therapy for Menopausal Symptoms Increases Ovarian Cancer Risk

 Use of conventional hormonal therapy for menopausal symptoms doubled the long-term risk of ovarian cancer and the risk of dying of the disease, according to an analysis of Women's Health Initiative (WHI) clinical trial data.

Among 10,739 women with prior hysterectomy, treatment with conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) resulted in an ovarian cancer hazard ratio of 2.04 versus placebo during 20 years of follow-up (35 vs 17 cases). Ovarian cancer mortality almost tripled in the CEE group.

Women with an intact uterus received CEE plus medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), which did not significantly increase ovarian cancer risk or mortality versus placebo and was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of endometrial cancer.

"The findings should inform decisions regarding hormone therapy use and suggest reconsideration of guideline recommendations of estrogen-alone use in ovarian cancer survivors," said Rowan Chlebowski, MD, PhD, of City of Hope in Duarte, California, during a press briefing prior to the American Society of Clinical Oncology meetingopens in a new tab or window.

The findings should be considered with the recognition that the absolute risk of ovarian cancer incidence and mortality was extremely low in women who received CEE with or without MPA, said invited discussant Eleonora Teplinsky, MD, of Valley Health System in Paramus, New Jersey.

"This new information is really an important part of patient counseling and education and discussing with patients what their ovarian cancer risk is, but it should not necessarily detract or take away from a woman's decision to take menopausal hormone therapy for relief of symptoms," said Teplinsky.

"Currently, conjugated equine estrogen is a less commonly used estrogen preparation, and so we must take that into context as we extrapolate to modern-day estrogen formulations," she added.

Despite the fact that hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms has been approved in the U.S. since 1943, its influence on endometrial and ovarian cancer incidence and mortality remains unsettled after more than 50 years of follow-up, said Chlebowski. Observational studies have generally shown increased risk with CEE alone, but findings with CEE plus a progestin have been mixed.

In an effort to bring more clarity to the discussion, investigators turned to the database of the WHIopens in a new tab or window, initiated in 1991 to study major health issues causing morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women. The analysis included 10,739 women with prior hysterectomy and 16,608 with an intact uterus. Eligible participants were ages 50-79 and had no history of breast cancer or suggestion of it on mammogram.

In both groups (CEE or CEE/MPA vs placebo), planned treatment was for 8.5 years. The comparison of CEE/MPA and placebo ended after 5.2 yearsopens in a new tab or window because of an increased risk of breast cancer with the hormonal therapy. The trial of CEE versus placeboopens in a new tab or window ended for futility after a mean follow-up of 6.8 years. Endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer were specified secondary outcomes.

The trials were conducted at 40 U.S. centers, where investigators enrolled participants from 1993-1998. During 20 years of follow-up, 35 ovarian cancers occurred in the CEE-alone arm versus 17 in the placebo group (HR 2.04, 95% CI 1.14-3.65, P=0.014). The CEE group had 25 ovarian cancer deaths versus nine in the placebo group (HR 2.79, 95% CI 1.30-5.99, P=0.006). All-cause mortality also was significantly higher in the CEE group (30 vs 12; HR 2.47, 95% CI 1.26-4.84, P=0.006).

In the trial of CEE/MPA, active hormonal treatment was associated with hazard ratios of 1.14-1.37 for ovarian mortality, cancer-specific mortality, and all-cause mortality, respectively. None of the differences reached statistical significance.

CEE/MPA was associated with a significant reduction in endometrial cancer incidence (106 vs 140; HR 0.72, 95% CI 0.56-0.92, P=0.010) and all-cause mortality (51 vs 72; HR 0.68, 95% CI 0.47-0.97, P=0.034). The hormonal therapy resulted in numerically lower endometrial cancer mortality (13 vs 21; HR 0.58, 95% CI 0.29-1.16, P=0.12).

In a discussion that followed his presentation, Chlebowski said applicability of the findings to contemporary hormonal strategies for menopausal symptoms is complicated by the fact that "it's very, very difficult to find out what's the true penetrance of other therapies: transdermal estradiol, lower-dose CEE, and MPA."

"Everybody says [hormonal therapy] has shifted, but at the time this study was done, this was 90% of what was being used as therapy," he continued. "It's unclear what gynecologists in clinical practice have been doing. It's been almost impossible for us to find in the last 10 years what the shift has been. It's really not clear whether there's been a huge sea change in what therapy has been given."

Disclosures

The Women's Health Initiative is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Chlebowski disclosed relationships with Pfizer and UpToDate.

Primary Source

American Society of Clinical Oncology

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowChlebowski R, et al "Menopausal hormone therapy and endometrial and ovarian cancer outcomes: Findings from the Women's Health Initiative randomized clinical trials" ASCO 2024; Abstract 10506.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/asco/110325

'Increase in CRC Cases in Younger Age Groups Extends to Preteens'

 Though overall numbers remain very low, annual colorectal cancer (CRC) rates in the U.S. have more than tripled among teenagers over the past two decades, coinciding with increases across all younger age groups, an analysis of the CDC Wonder Database found.

From 1999 to 2020, annual CRC rates among children ages 10-14 jumped by 500% (reaching 0.6 per 100,000 in 2020), while rates rose by 333% in teens ages 15-19 (1.3 per 100,000) and by 185% among adults ages 20-24 (reaching 2 per 100,000), reported Islam Mohamed, MD, of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, in a presentation at the annual Digestive Disease Weekopens in a new tab or window (DDW) conference.

"The trend is consistent, and it's in all age groups" that were analyzed, Mohamed told MedPage Today. "But the absolute incidence is not high enough to blanket-generalize screening measures for the whole population."

For other age groups, the level of increase and incident rates for 2020 were as follows:

• 25-29 years: 68%, reaching about 3 per 100,000
• 30-34 years: 71%, reaching 6.5 per 100,000
• 35-39 years: 58%, reaching 11.7 per 100,000
• 40-44 years: 45%, reaching 21.2 per 100,000

A trend of rising CRC cases in younger people prompted the U.S. Preventive Services Task Forceopens in a new tab or window to recommend CRC screening starting at age 45 instead of 50 for individuals at average risk. Last year, an American Cancer Society studyopens in a new tab or window found that the proportion of all new CRC diagnoses that are in patients younger than 55 grew from 11% in 1995 to 20%, and new cases rose by 2% annually among people younger than 50.

Statistical trends like these inspired Mohamed and colleagues to study CRC statistics by age group, he said. The researchers had also followed media reports about younger celebrities with CRC, including the late "Black Panther" actor Chadwick Boseman, who died at age 43.

Mohamed said his clinic has seen multiple cases where young patients have come in with symptoms like bleedingopens in a new tab or window and mistaken them for conditions like hemorrhoids instead of CRC "because they're not aware of symptoms of cancer."

"Eventually, once they get a scope or colonoscopy, we find that there's something else that is going on," he said.

Mohamed cautioned that incidence rates are still much lower in the under-45 population than in older groups. From 2012-2016, the incident rate per 100,000 was 59.5 for people ages 50-54 and 153 for those ages 70-74, according to the American Cancer Societyopens in a new tab or window.

Possible explanations for the rise in cases include increasing rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome, Mohamed said. Alcohol use and smoking can also play roles, he said, along with diet -- especially processed red meat consumption -- and sugar-sweetened drinks.

The findings emphasize that the general public, even younger populations, needs to take the signs and symptoms of cancer seriously, Mohamed said. "It's very important that they are aware that when they have abdominal symptoms with no reason, they should be evaluated. And they should be concerned if they have constipation, diarrhea, or changes in bowel habits."

As for physicians, they should carefully evaluate patients who show indications of cancer, he said.

The University of Kentucky's Syed Adeel Hassan, MBBS, MD, who's familiar with the new findings but did not take part in the research, told MedPage Today that the study is "tremendous." The findings "further provide a detailed breakdown of young-onset CRC incidence for various young age groups below the age of 45 years," Hassan said. "However, this is just the tip of the iceberg and further work is needed to broaden the applicability of these results."

Hassan, who led a study presented at DDW that highlighted low declines in CRC mortality rates in Appalachian Kentucky compared with the rest of the country, said "these trends in rising incidence in younger people are not well understood."

"Modifiable lifestyle risk factors and social trends may be the actual culprit." In particular, he said, diets high in saturated fats and red meats have been linked to a 10-fold increase in the risk of developing CRC.

"Physical inactivity is also a risk factor for CRC," he said. "This can be further explained by the expansion of sedentary jobs by up to 80% in the past few decades."

For now, Hassan said, "clinicians must be wary of young-CRC predominant symptoms such as abdominal pain and raise the bar for clinical suspicion for potential CRC screening in the young population."

Moving forward, Hassan said, "the rising burden of young-onset CRC will likely force GI societies to amend recommendations for CRC screening."

The next steps are to "identify mortality-related trends," he said. "Furthermore, the influence of COVID on CRC and its associated risk factors must be ascertained in the at-risk young population." And, he added, better understanding of incidence rates by county and state, urban-rural classification, gender and race would be "instrumental to develop well-characterized predictive factors for young-onset CRC."

Disclosures

The study had no funding. Mohamed and Hassan reported having no disclosures.

Primary Source

Digestive Disease Week

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowMohamed I, et al "Evolving trends in colorectal cancer incidence among young patients under 45: A 22-year analysis of CDC Wonder Database" DDW 2024.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/ddw/110323

'Zelenskiy, from ravaged Kharkiv, urges Biden and Xi to join peace summit'

 President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sunday to attend his peace summit as Ukraine struggles to stave off unrelenting attacks by Russia in its 27-month-old invasion.

Ukraine hopes to host as many countries as possible at Kyiv-led talks in Switzerland next month aimed at uniting global opinion on how to halt the war and piling pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has not been invited.

Zelenskiy spoke in an English-language video recorded in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, inside the charred remains of a printing house that was destroyed on Thursday in a Russian missile strike. He said more than 80 countries would attend.

But it was unclear whether Biden would be there, nor has Beijing, which maintains close ties with Moscow, said whether it would attend.

A U.S. official said on Sunday that the United States will participate in the summit, but declined to say who or at what level.

"I am appealing to the leaders of the world who are still aside from the global efforts of the Global Peace Summit – to President Biden, the leader of the United States, and to President Xi, the leader of China," said Zelenskiy.

"Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace – the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes," he said.

Zelenskiy added that the summit would "show who in the world really wants to end the war."

Kyiv, in its peace plan, calls for a full withdrawal of Russian troops and a restoration of its internationally recognised borders, something Moscow considers a non-starter.

Last week, Russian sources told Reuters that Putin was ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines.

In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the Russian leader was "trying to derail" the Switzerland event because he was "scared of its success."

"His entourage sends these phony signals of alleged readiness for a cease-fire despite the fact that Russian troops continue to brutally attack Ukraine while their missiles and drones rain down on Ukrainian cities and communities," he wrote on X.

Russia has previously said it sees no point in Ukraine's conference.

RUSSIAN ADVANCES

In recent months Moscow's forces have made slow but steady gains along several parts of the sprawling eastern front and are attempting to push deeper into the northeastern Kharkiv region after a ground incursion launched earlier this month.

The regional capital has been repeatedly hit by Russian bombs and missile strikes, including the attack on the printing house that killed seven and another on a DIY hardware store on Saturday that killed at least 14.

In his video address, Zelenskiy also said that Moscow was gathering troops for new "offensive actions" further northwest of Kharkiv along the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Ukraine's army chief last week said his forces were preparing for a possible Russian assault on the Sumy region that neighbours Kharkiv.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/zelenskiy-kharkiv-urges-biden-xi-082017694.html

'Yemen's Houthis free more than 100 prisoners'

 Yemen's Houthi group freed more than 100 detainees in Sanaa on Sunday, calling the move a "unilateral humanitarian initiative" to pardon prisoners and return them to their families.

"Most of them are humanitarian cases, including the sick, the wounded, and the elderly," said Abdul Qader Al-Murtada, head of the Houthi-run prisoner affairs committee, who announced the release and said the detainees had been government soldiers captured at the battlefront.

But Yemen's internationally recognised government said the detainees were not soldiers, but civilians the Houthis had kidnapped from homes, mosques and workplaces.

"Releasing these victims under any name does not absolve (the Houthis) of this crime," Majed Fadail, deputy minister for human rights in Yemen's internationally recognised government wrote in a post on social media platform X.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed on Sunday the unilateral release of 113 "conflict-related" detainees and said in a statement that it assisted the detainees to ensure their release was humane and dignified.

"I feel completely at ease, as if I was born again today. Because we were desperate and thought we would never get out," said Murshed Al Jamaai, a detainee released on Sunday.

Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Houthis ousted the government from the capital Sanaa in late 2014. The Saudi Arabia-led military coalition intervened in 2015, aiming to restore the government.

The outlines of a proposed Yemen UN roadmap for peace were agreed last December, but progress towards peace stalled as the Houthis ramped up attacks on ships in and around the Red Sea, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war.

The campaign has disrupted global commerce, stoked fears of inflation and deepened concern that fallout from the Israel-Hamas war could destabilise parts of the Middle East.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/yemens-houthis-free-more-100-110402434.html

Hamas fires missiles at Tel Aviv, prompting first sirens in months

 Hamas launched missiles at Tel Aviv on Sunday, setting off sirens in Israel's financial center for the first time in four months, as the Islamist Palestinian group sought to show military strength despite Israel's Gaza offensive.

The Israeli military said eight projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Rafah, the southern tip of the Gaza Strip where Israel kept up operations despite a ruling by the top U.N. court on Friday ordering it to stop attacking the city.

A number of the projectiles were intercepted, it said. There were no reports of casualties.

In a statement on its Telegram channel, the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades said the rockets were launched in response to "Zionist massacres against civilians".

Rafah is located about 100 km (60 miles) south of Tel Aviv.

Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area, but its assault has worsened the plight of civilians and caused an international outcry.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in Rafah, according to local medical services. The Gaza health ministry identified the dead as civilians.

Israeli tanks have probed around the edges of Rafah, near the crossing point from Gaza into Egypt, and have entered some of its eastern districts, residents say, but have not yet entered the city in force since the start of operations in the city earlier this month.

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said the rockets fired from Rafah "prove that the (Israel Defense Forces) must operate in every place Hamas still operates from".

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant held an operational assessment in Rafah where he was briefed on "troops’ operations above and below the ground, as well as the deepening of operations in additional areas with the aim of dismantling Hamas battalions", his office said in a statement.

Itamar Ben Gvir, a hardline public security minister who is not part of Israel's war cabinet, urged the army to hit Rafah harder. "Rafah with full force," he posted on X.

Nearly 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive, Gaza's health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Fighting also continued in the northern Gaza area of Jabaliya, the scene of intense combat earlier in the war. During one raid, the military said it found a weapons storage site with dozens of rocket parts and weapons at a school.

It denied Hamas statements that Palestinian fighters had abducted an Israeli soldier.

Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike on a house in a neighborhood near Jabaliya killed 10 people and wounded others.

TRUCE TALKS

Efforts to agree a halt to the fighting and return more than 120 hostages have been blocked for weeks but there were some signs of movement this weekend following meetings between Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials and Qatar's prime minister.

An official with knowledge of the matter said a decision had been taken to resume the talks this week based on new proposals from Egyptian and Qatari mediators, and with "active U.S. involvement."

However, a Hamas official played down the report, telling Reuters: "It is not true."

A second Hamas official, Izzat El-Reshiq, said the group had not received anything from the mediators on new dates for resuming talks as had been reported by Israeli media.

Reshiq restated Hamas's demands, which include: "Ending the aggression completely and permanently, in all of Gaza Strip, not only Rafah".

While Israel is seeking the return of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said the war will not end until Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, is eliminated.

AID TRUCKS ENTER GAZA

Israel has faced calls to get more aid into Gaza after more than seven months of a war that has caused widespread destruction and hunger in the enclave.

Khaled Zayed of the Egyptian Red Crescent told Reuters 200 trucks of aid, including four fuel trucks, were expected to enter Gaza on Sunday through Kerem Shalom.

It follows an agreement between U.S. President Joe Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Friday to temporarily send aid via the Kerem Shalom crossing, bypassing the Rafah crossing that has been blocked for weeks.

Egypt's state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV shared a video on social media platform X, showing what it said were aid trucks as they entered Kerem Shalom, which before the conflict was the main commercial crossing station between Israel, Egypt and Gaza.

The Rafah crossing has been shut for almost three weeks, since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing as it stepped up its offensive.

Egypt has been increasingly alarmed at the prospect of large numbers of Palestinians entering its territory from Gaza and has refused to open its side of the Rafah crossing.

Israel has said it is not restricting aid flows and has opened up new crossing points in the north as well as cooperating with the United States, which has built a temporary floating pier for aid deliveries.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/more-aid-trucks-expected-roll-113132590.html

Taiwan president extends goodwill after China drills, US lawmakers arrive

 Taiwan President Lai Ching-te extended goodwill towards and offered cooperation with China on Sunday following two days of Chinese war games near the island, as a group of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Taipei.

China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out the military drills on Thursday and Friday, calling them "punishment" after Lai's inauguration speech on Monday which Beijing called another push for the island's formal independence.

China has repeatedly lambasted Lai as a "separatist". Lai rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future. He has repeatedly offered talks but been rebuffed.

Speaking at a meeting of his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the southern city of Tainan, Lai called on China to "share the heavy responsibility of regional stability with Taiwan", according to comments provided by his party.

Lai, who won election in January, said he also "looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation with China via exchanges and cooperation, creating mutual benefit and moving towards a position of peace and common prosperity".

He thanked the United States and other countries for their expressions of concern about the Chinese exercises.

"The international community will not accept any country creating waves in the Taiwan Strait and affecting regional stability," Lai added.

The first group of U.S. lawmakers to visit Taiwan since Lai took office arrived on the island on Sunday for a four-day visit, led by Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

McCaul, joined by a bipartisan group of five other lawmakers, will meet Lai on Monday morning to "exchange views on peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific", Taiwan's presidential office said.

"Taiwan is a thriving democracy. The U.S. will continue to stand by our steadfast partner and work to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait," McCaul said in a statement.

Taiwan's government has condemned China's war games.

Over the past four years, China has staged regular military activities around Taiwan as it seeks to pressure the island's government.

On Sunday, Taiwan's defence ministry said the garrison on Erdan islet, part of the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands that sit next to China's Xiamen and Quanzhou cities, had discovered a "crude" cardboard box containing paper with political slogans on it, written in the simplified Chinese characters used in China.

The ministry said the box was suspected of being dropped by a drone outside the line of sight, adding, "It is a typical cognitive operation trick."

In 2022, Taiwan shot down a drone off Kinmen after complaining of days of harassment.

China's defence ministry did not answer calls outside of office hours.

China's military has kept up a barrage of propaganda videos and animations directed at Taiwan since the exercises began.

Its Eastern Theatre Command, which ran the drills, showed a video on Sunday of rockets firing in what it referred to in English as "cross-strait lethality".

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-drills-taiwan-president-again-031024493.html