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 Uyghurs, is now well known,

but China's authorities are starting to squeeze another more dispersed Muslim minority, the Huais.

Mosques are being redesigned and Arabic script 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 its planned to target fried chicken shops 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 took to 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.

City council elections in and of themselves mean very little. These are positions that have almost no actual powers.

Noah Snyder 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.

There's a transition of some kind looming in 2024, and the scramble for power has already begun.

And what about the protests that have been happening now for months?

How do they figure in and what is it the people have been calling for?

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