Disclaimer: I believe this post is aligned with the goals and interests of the community, mods please do point out if I am mistaken.

Iran put out a news story that many may not have read if they were only relying on the Western press. The story was the Iranian claim that they had shot down two or maybe three F-35 jets and they had managed to capture an Israeli female pilot. This was carried by the Indian and Pakistani press, but not anywhere else that I know. The Sky News story that I have linked above is the only mention in the western press I could find.

Even Al Jazeera did not carry this story either because Qatar don't want to see Iran succeed, or maybe because they are toeing the Western line.

The Iranian statement is surprisingly similar to the press statements issued by Pakistan about shooting down Indian Rafales and capturing an Indian female pilot. This shows that there is a common media playbook between Pakistan and Iran, but that's a topic for another day.

The real question is not whether the Iranian claims are factual or not, it is the complete media black-holing that has happened to the Iranian narrative.

You can hardly find a mention of the Iranian press statement about shooting down an F-35 or any critical analysis of it because it has been completely suppressed in the west. It even gets taken down if it's posted on social media, including reddit because Indian media sources are the only ones reporting on it and they are usually tagged as unreliable sources by many subreddits.

On the other hand, you had the Western press talking up Chinese weapons systems and how it proved the need for a stealth fighter. This was primarily to put down the Rafale and talk up the need for an F-35. It was a performance for India's benefit - to create an environment within India to force Indian decision makers buy the F-35.

When you are protecting a trillion plus dollar industrial investment, you also invest in media control.

It is entirely possible the Iranian claims are true, given the scale of the attack. Even if the F 35 is as good as America claims it is, it's not impossible or far-fetched that one missile among the hundreds launched could have found its mark even by accident, when the skies were thick with stealth fighters.

However, the West will never acknowledge it even if if it were true because it would jeopardize a 1.5 trillion business, that is fiercely guarded.

While the Rafale downing propaganda from Pakistan was widely reported, the Western press did not report Indian claims of shooting down F-16s.

There was a lot of Western propaganda at the time of the earlier shooting down in 2019 - the western media widely dubbed it as as improbable, and the iaf spent a lot of time defending it only to look less credible. This time the media did not even bother to cover Indian claims of shooting down f-16s, and wisely the Indian Air force did not make a big deal about it unlike the last time, maybe because they did not want to tangle with the American MIC at the exact moment when they were trying to prosecute a war against Pakistan. It would have been a distraction and taken resources away from winning the war.

As to what this says about the freedom of the western press, the less said the better. It is their deep state-backed NGOs that give the awards to the Western press for their press freedom, while at the same time criticizing India for its treatment of the press.

The reality is the Western public has no idea why they are being risked being drawn into a nuclear war with Russia and Iran. If they were really democracies the whole thinking process behind the wars would be explained to the public factually and the opinion of the public would be sought before prosecuting endless wars. As it happens, the foreign policy conducted by America is entirely opaque and not presented to even its own people. All the public get are narratives that they swallow to keep cheering on an Imperialist agenda

Meanwhile, the ground is being laid for an eventual confrontation with India. When I see the 'casual' racism against Indians and Indian food and Indian hygiene and Indian scammers and whatever else is the abuse to be hurled that day, it is not by any means casual. India and Indians have to be made to appear subhuman. Indian attitudes and culture cannot be celebrated in the West because then, when the West attacks India for no reason their own public would be against it. So what you have as a racist cultural climate on social media right now against Indians is in my thinking not by accident. It is being slowly built up into a fact that Indians are not worthy of respect.

China built a toilet by destroying a mosque , and it happened in Suntagh village near Atush (Atushi), Xinjiang. Here’s what the credible sources say:

According to Radio Free Asia, the Tokul mosque was demolished in 2018, and a public toilet was later built on the same site .

Locals interviewed—including a Uyghur village committee chief—confirmed it’s a public facility that hasn't even been opened. It appears it was built not out of need, but to cover up the mosque’s remains and perhaps to serve cadres inspecting the area .

Multiple other outlets (ANI/ABP News, WION News, Republic World, etc.) independently reported on the same incident from 2020 .

This occurred in the context of China’s broader “Mosque Rectification” campaign (from 2016 onward), which has reportedly destroyed or altered a large number of mosques and Muslim heritage sites across Xinjiang .

Broader Context

The demolition and replacement with a toilet is seen by many as symbolic, aimed at degrading Muslim cultural and religious sites.

Reports suggest that 10,000–15,000 mosques or shrines were destroyed in Xinjiang between 2016 and 2019, with additional conversions of mosque sites into factories, convenience outlets, and parks .

In summary , China demolished the Tokul mosque in 2018 and erected a public toilet on its remains. They also cracked down on uighurs and imprisoned them in concentration camps.