HONG KONG (AFP) - Pro-democracy protests brought widespread travel chaos to Hong Kong on Monday with many schools and businesses shuttered but the city's stock exchange said it would operate as usual.
As commuters tried to make their way to work, crowds of defiant demonstrators controlled a number of major thoroughfares and intersections in the heavily congested city.
An AFP reporter on the scene in Mongkok - one of the most densely populated suburbs of the city and the site of a second protest across the harbour in Kowloon - saw angry confrontations between protestors and members of the public frustrated at the disruption.
Banks, jewellery shops and clothes stores in the busy shopping district remained closed. The Transport Department said more than 200 bus routes were suspended or diverted while central sections of the tram network were also down.