Hong Kong students, workers strike as commutes disrupted

High school students in Hong Kong added gas masks, goggles and hard hats to their formal white uniforms as they participated in a strike Monday on the first day of school to show their commitment to the city's fiery anti-government protest movement.

The nearly three months of youth-dominated protests calling for democracy and an independent inquiry into police conduct will be tested as classes resume after the summer break in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.

Strikers gathered in the hundreds at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and two public spaces in the city's central business district.

Workers on strike congregated in Tamar Park, while at nearby Edinburgh Place, high school students who were skipping class rallied around a black banner that read, "With no future, there's no need to go to class."
At St Francis' Canossian College, uniformed students kneeled in a line and held up hand-painted signs that read, "The five major demands: Not one is dispensable."