End to Hong Kong protests in sight?

Student protest leaders in Hong Kong said on Thursday that they would decide within the next week whether to end more than two months of street protests, following violent confrontations between demonstrators and police at the weekend.

"There needs to be a decision that is made about whether to leave or stay," Yvonne Leung from the Hong Kong Federation of students told local radio.

"Within a week's time, we definitely will have a decision," she said.

Leung said police violence at clashes outside government headquarters on Sunday, along with public pressure, had led the student federation to reconsider its options.

Leaders of another group behind the protests, the "Occupy Central" movement, on Wednesday surrendered to police and called on students to leave the streets following the violence.

However, members of another student group, "Scholarism," remain on on hunger strike to underline their call for renewed talks, which has been rejected by city leader Leung Chung-ying.

Dwindling support

Since late September, Hong Kong has been disrupted by demonstrations in the city, aimed at pressuring the Beijing government to allow open nominations in leadership elections scheduled for 2017 in the former British colony.

At their height, the rallies drew tens of thousands of people, but numbers have dwindled to just hundreds in recent weeks. Police have cleared three protest sites in the city, but two camps remain in its center.

The Beijing government has refused to step down from its position, after announcing in late August that candidates for the 2017 leadership elections will first have to be vetted by a loyalist committee.

Britain handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese government in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" scheme that allows Hong Kong a degree of autonomy from the mainland and envisages eventual "universal suffrage."

tj/ksb (AFP, Reuters)