Police in Hong Kong move to clear tunnel

HONG KONG - Hundreds of Hong Kong police officers moved in early Wednesday to clear pro-democracy protesters out of a tunnel outside the city government headquarters.

Officers, many of them in riot gear and wielding pepper spray, tore down barricades and removed obstacles such as concrete slabs in and around the underpass.

The operation came hours after a large group of protesters blockaded the tunnel.

They outnumbered the police officers, who later returned with reinforcements.

Local television broadcast live footage of the operation and its aftermath, with officers taking away many protesters, their hands tied with plastic cuffs, and pushing others out to a nearby park.

The student-led protesters are now into their third week of occupying key parts of the city to pressure the Asian financial hub's government over curbs recommended by Beijing on democratic reforms.

Positions on both sides have been hardening since the government called off negotiations last week, citing the unlikelihood of a constructive outcome given their sharp differences.

Police have chipped away at the protest zones in three areas across the city by removing barricades from the edges of the protest zones, signaling impatience with activists' occupation of busy streets.

The clearance operation was the latest in a day of tit-for-tat actions between authorities and demonstrators that began Tuesday morning when police used chainsaws and sledgehammers to tear down barricades on a road on the edge of the protest zone.

Activists responded Tuesday evening by barricading the tunnel with tires, metal barricades, water-filled plastic safety barriers, and concrete slabs taken from drainage ditches.

They used the slabs to form the shape of an umbrella on the road.

Umbrellas have become a symbol of the protests after demonstrators used them to protect themselves against pepper spray and tear gas used by police in an attempt to disperse them two weeks ago.

Beijing is eager to end the protests to avoid emboldening activists and others on the mainland seen as a threat to the Communist Party's monopoly on power.