Hong Kong workers cleared large parts of the main pro-democracy protest site near the heart of the financial centre on Thursday (December 11), marking an end to more than two months of street demonstrations that have choked parts of the Chinese-controlled city.

The mainly peaceful protests to demand free elections have represented one of the most serious challenges to China's authority since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations and bloody crackdown in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Hundreds of police stood by in the Admiralty district next to government buildings and the Central business area as workers in construction hats used wire cutters to remove barricades.