http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/world/asia/hong-kong-officials-offer-fresh-talks-with-protesters-.html 2014-10-18 22:33:37 Hong Kong Officials Offer Fresh Talks With Protesters The Chinese government said on Saturday that it would hold talks with student protest leaders on Tuesday, which could help ease tensions. === HONG KONG — The government said on Saturday that it would hold talks with student protest leaders on Tuesday, the start of a formal dialogue that could ease tensions over nearly three weeks of demonstrations that the police have been unable to shut down. Carrie Lam, In his first public comment since the “I have a message from the bottom of my heart: These illegal acts are hurting Hong Kong, hurting our society,” he told reporters on Saturday. He did not answer questions. The police said 15 officers had been injured and 26 protesters had been arrested as of Saturday evening, with a tense standoff continuing into early Sunday morning. The scheduling of the talks with the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the groups leading the protests, comes a week It is unclear whether the new dialogue, expected to last two hours and to be moderated by a university president, will cool the dissent. Mrs. Lam reiterated the government’s demand that any proposal for changes in election law That ruling said that while Hong Kong residents would be able to vote for chief executive starting in 2017, the power to nominate candidates would continue to reside with a 1,200-member committee dominated by Beijing loyalists. Critics have said that such restrictions would not give voters a real choice of candidates, and a band of Hong Kong lawmakers have vowed to block legislation to make such changes. Dissatisfaction with Beijing’s control of Hong Kong’s leadership erupted in a weeklong student strike last month that eventually led to the Occupy protests, inspired by the Occupy Central With Love and Peace movement. Although protest leaders initially promised nonviolence, protesters have become more radical in recent days, agitated by apparent Chan Kin-man, a co-founder of the Occupy movement, said in an article published in a local newspaper on Saturday that protesters should rethink their confrontational tactics. “We don’t simply bring about disruption for the sake of disruption,” he wrote. “Civil disobedience must strike a balance between creating disruption and wining society’s sympathy, and the latter relies on nonviolence and self-sacrifice.” “If we lose control and retaliate with violence,” he added, “the moral foundation of the whole occupation movement would collapse.”