Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The plight of China's Muslim group, the Weekers, is now well known, but China's authorities

are starting to squeeze another more dispersed Muslim minority, the Hues.

The risks are being redesigned and Arabic scripts scrubbed from them,

many fear that further repression awaits.

And knife crime in Britain is on the rise.

The government is trying to spread a public service message that will reduce the violence,

particularly among the young, but it's planned to target fried chicken shops as it hasn't

gone down well.

First up though.

On Sunday, Russians will vote in local elections around the country.

They come after a summer of discontent when tens of thousands of people focus on the streets

in Moscow.

Now after that contentious run-up, the focus of attention is on the vote for local council

seats in the capital.

Security council elections in and of themselves mean very little.

These are positions that have almost no actual powers.

Noisner is the economist's Russia correspondent.

But symbolically they mean a lot, and they've become a proxy for the larger battle over

nothing less, really, than Russia's future.

Vladimir Putin's in his last constitutionally permitted term.

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