Hong Kong demonstrators try to retake protest camp

• Fresh clashes broke out in Hong Kong on Friday night as demonstrators attempted to retake a protest camp partially cleared by police earlier in the day, jeopardising talks to end weeks of mass democracy rallies.
• Officers used pepper spray and batons to beat back activists as they tried to reoccupy a busy main road in the bustling Mongkok district, which has been home to a protest camp for nearly three weeks, an AFP reporter on the scene saw.
• “We want to take back this spot because it’s what we had,” said Gary Yip, a 17-year-old high school student.
• It is the third consecutive night that violence has broken out after a fortnight of comparative calm — a development that risks sinking only recently resurrected plans to hold talks between student leaders and the city’s Beijing-backed authorities.
• The Asian financial hub has been rocked by demonstrations for nearly three weeks — some of which drew crowds of tens of thousands — calling for free elections and the resignation of the city’s leader Leung Chun-ying.
• Protesters have held sit-ins at three major intersections causing significant disruption to a city usually known for its stability, and presenting Beijing with one of the most significant challenges to its authority since the 1989 Tiananmen protests.
• China has insisted that Mr. Leung’s successor must be vetted by a loyalist committee before standing for election in 2017, a proposal protesters have dismissed as “fake democracy”.
• Earlier in the day, officers had significantly reduced the size of the northern Mongkok camp — the second largest after the main protest site opposite the government’s headquarters in central Hong Kong — in a swift dawn raid that saw no resistance from demonstrators.
• Mongkok had previously seen clashes between protesters and masked government loyalists earlier in the month.
• Throughout Friday, demonstrators managed to hold on to one side of a multi-lane road where the camp had been located. Police then struggled to maintain order as crowds of pro-democracy supporters began to swell during the evening.
• Violence broke out around 8 p.m. (1200 GMT) after several protesters tried to push through a police cordon.