HONG KONG: Students occupying the area outside Hong Kong's government headquarters agreed Sunday to remove some barricades that have blocked the building's entrance during weeklong pro-democracy protests, as police warned of taking "all necessary measures" to clear the streets by the beginning of the work week.
Television footage from the scene showed a protest representative shaking hands with a police officer, but it was not immediately clear whether all the students had decided to withdraw. The move appeared to be part of a strategy to regroup in another part of town.
Across the harbor in Hong Kong's Mong Kok district, protesters were divided about whether to stay put or decamp to the city's Admiralty section, the main protest site.
Tens of thousands of people, many of them students, have poured into the streets of the semi-autonomous city over the past week to peacefully protest China's restrictions on the first-ever direct election for Hong Kong's top leader, promised by Beijing for 2017. But with the standoff between the protesters and the government in its eighth day, tempers were flaring and patience was waning among residents who oppose the occupation of the streets and the disruption it has brought.
Police armed with pepper spray and batons clashed with pro-democracy protesters overnight, after officials said they intended to have key streets open for schools and offices by Monday morning. Large crowds of protesters scuffled with police in the blue-collar Mong Kok district in Kowloon, a flash point that has seen violent clashes between pro-democracy student protesters and their antagonists over the weekend.
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