Image caption Village came out in large numbers to protest after the death of their negotiator 
 
 Residents of a Chinese village locked in a stand-off over land seizures appear to be nearing a compromise with local authorities. 
 
 Protests have been simmering in Wukan, in Guangdong province, since September and escalated after the death of a village negotiator in police custody. 
 
 Villagers had planned a march through police barriers on Wednesday. 
 
 But a senior official met a village representative, and villagers said some demands had been met. 
 
 The villagers say officials have sold off their land to developers and failed to compensate them properly. 
 
 They also want an investigation into the death of Xue Jinbo, who died on 11 December while in the hands of local police. 
 
 Police say he died of a "sudden illness", but his family say he was beaten to death. 
 
 The villagers had planned to march through police barricades around the town to local government offices. Local authorities had urged them not to. 
 
 Amid deadlock, deputy provincial Communist Party secretary Zhu Mingguo agreed to meet local leaders on Wednesday in the town of Lufeng. 
 
 Image caption Police have set up roadblocks around the village 
 
 Village representative Lin Zulian said that the authorities had agreed to release three other village leaders detained at the same time as Mr Xue, and to release Mr Xue's body. 
 
 "I'm very satisfied with the outcome of the meeting," AFP news agency quoted him as saying. "This is not a victory, but it is a beginning." 
 
 Villagers have told the BBC they will return to the streets if promises are not kept. They later held a meeting to discuss the developments. 
 
 There are thousands of protests over land grabs in China each year but the situation in Wukan has attracted considerable attention because of its scale. 
 
 There has also been a series of strikes and labour walk-outs in southern China in recent months. 
 
 On Tuesday a separate protest erupted in Haimen, also in Guangdong province, over local government plans to build a power plant. ||||| Southern Chinese authorities have given in to demands of protesting villagers after a nearly two-week standoff with police, releasing detainees and returning some confiscated land to farmers in a rare compromise. 
 
 Protest leader Yang Semao says a senior provincial official told him and another village representative in a meeting Wednesday that four villagers being held by police would be released over the next few days and land from one development project would be returned to the villagers. 
 
 Yang says police on Tuesday night withdrew and removed the roadblocks that they had set up leading into the village. 
 
 Wukan villagers angered by the sale of farmland without their consent drove out local officials and police almost two weeks ago.
– They fought the law and, for now, it looks like they won. Villagers in southern China who rebelled against the Communist Party over a land grab and the death of a village negotiator in police custody have had some of their demands met, AP reports. Authorities have agreed to release four detained villagers from Wukan and return confiscated land to farmers. The Communist Party's deputy chief in Guangdong province has agreed to meet with protest leaders, and, in return, villagers have agreed to postpone a planned march to government offices. Police officers had surrounded the Guangdong village of 20,000 people during the two-week standoff, but roadblocks have now been lifted. Thousands of protests against land grabs occur every year in China, but the one in Wukan attracted an unusual amount of attention both in China and abroad, the BBC notes.