Police officers are seen in the central financial district of Hong Kong, after Beijing's decision to tightly control the nomination of candidates for Hong Kong's 2017 election, August 31, 2014. 
 
 Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (C) speaks with top officers during a news conference at the Chief Executive's Office in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 Pro-Beijing protesters take part in a rally with Chinese national flag to support Beijing in exercising decisive action outside the Chief Executive's Office in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 A protester is seen during a campaign to kick off the Occupy Central civil disobedience event in front of the financial Central district in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 Founders of the Occupy Central civil disobedience movement (L-R), academic Chan Kin-man, academic Benny Tai and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming attend a campaign to kick off the movement in front of the financial Central district in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 Founders of the Occupy Central civil disobedience movement (L-R), Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, academic Benny Tai and academic Chan Kin-man, hit drums during a campaign to kick off the movement in front of the financial Central district in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 Pro-democracy protesters hold up their mobile phones during a campaign to kick off the Occupy Central civil disobedience event in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 A pro-democracy protester carries a placard which reads 'Communist Party, you lie!' as he sits with other protesters during a campaign to kick off the Occupy Central civil disobedience event in front of the financial Central district in Hong Kong August 31, 2014. 
 
 BEIJING/HONG KONG Pro-democracy activists vowed on Sunday to bring Hong Kong's financial hub to a standstill after China's parliament rejected their demands for the right to freely choose the former British colony's next leader in 2017. 
 
 The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) endorsed a framework to let only two or three candidates run in the 2017 leadership vote. All candidates must first obtain majority backing from a nominating committee likely to be stacked with Beijing loyalists. 
 
 The relatively tough decision by the NPC - China's final arbiter on the city's democratic affairs - makes it almost impossible for opposition democrats to get on the ballot. 
 
 "This is a legal, fair and reasonable decision. It is a dignified, prudent decision, and its legal effect is beyond doubt," Li Fei, deputy secretary general of the NPC standing committee, told reporters after the decision. 
 
 Hundreds of "Occupy Central" activists, who demand Beijing allow a real, free election, prepared to stage a small protest late on Sunday to formally launch a campaign of civil disobedience that will climax with a blockade at some time of the city's important Central business district. 
 
 "Today is not only the darkest day in the history of Hong Kong's democratic development, today is also the darkest day of one country, two systems," said Benny Tai, a law professor and one of Occupy Central's main leaders, referring to the formula under which capitalist Hong Kong, with a population of around 7.2 million, was returned to Communist Chinese rule in 1997. 
 
 The Occupy movement said in a statement that "all chances of dialogue have been exhausted and the occupation of Central will definitely happen." It gave no timeframe for its action. 
 
 A spokesman for Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (0388.HK), which operates the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, said contingency planning was taken very seriously. "We have long had a specialist team that coordinates group response plans for scenarios that put at risk the continuing operation of the exchange or threaten the well-being or safety of our staff." 
 
 Hong Kong's current chief executive Leung Chun-ying said Beijing's decision represented a major step forward in Hong Kong's development. 
 
 "Universal suffrage for the (chief executive) election through "one person, one vote" by Hong Kong people is not only a big step forward for Hong Kong, but also a historic milestone for our country," he said, adding people should express their opinion through peaceful and legal methods. 
 
 Political reform has been a constant source of friction between Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement and the mainland since Britain returned the city to China 17 years ago. 
 
 In nearby Macau, another special administrative region, leader and sole candidate Fernando Chui was "re-elected" on Sunday by a select panel of 400 largely pro-China loyalists in the tiny but wealthy former Portuguese colony. 
 
 GIRDING FOR ACTION 
 
 Scores of police vehicles and hundreds of officers were deployed outside Hong Kong government headquarters as people began to gather late on Sunday, braving heavy rain at times, with some chanting slogans. 
 
 Key government buildings, including the Chief Executive's office and a People's Liberation Army barracks nearby, were also ringed by high fences and barricades. 
 
 "It (the NPC decision) leaves no room for us to fight for a genuinely democratic system, and we will begin our campaign for peaceful, non-violent struggle," said Joseph Cheng, the convener of the Alliance for True Democracy, a coalition of groups advocating universal suffrage in Hong Kong. "We want to tell the world we haven't given up. We will continue to fight." 
 
 The United States responded cautiously. Commenting on the planned protest, a U.S. official who declined to be identified by name said Washington supports Hong Kong’s "traditions and Basic Law protections of internationally recognized freedoms, including the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression." 
 
 The official also said "the legitimacy of the chief executive will be greatly enhanced if "the election provides the people of Hong Kong a genuine choice of candidates representative of the voters’ will." 
 
 "We understand that the August 31 announcement is just one step in an ongoing process leading to a final decision on election reform in Hong Kong and will continue to watch as the process unfolds," the official said in Washington. 
 
 On the surface, the NPC's decision is a breakthrough that endorses the framework for the first direct vote by a Chinese city to choose its leader. Beijing is already hailing it as a milestone in democratic reform. 
 
 However, by tightly curbing nominations for the 2017 leadership poll, some democrats said Beijing was pushing a Chinese-style version of "fake" democracy. 
 
 The NPC statement said all nominations would be carried out according to "democratic procedures" and each candidate would need the endorsement of more than half of a nominating committee that will be similar in composition to an existing 1,200-person election committee stacked with Beijing loyalists. 
 
 The proposed electoral framework will still needs to be approved by two-thirds of Hong Kong's 70-seat legislature. With pro-democracy lawmakers holding more than a third of the seats, the proposal will likely be shelved. 
 
 In that case, the next leader would likely again be chosen by a small election committee. Wang Zhenmin, a prominent legal scholar and adviser to the Chinese government, said recently that: "Less perfect universal suffrage is better than no universal suffrage," adding that this window of opportunity in Hong Kong was an historical crossroads after "2,000 years of (Chinese) feudal history without any democracy." 
 
 Senior Chinese officials have repeatedly warned activists against their "illegal" protests, and say they won't back down. 
 
 Some key members of the pro-democracy movement, including media magnate Jimmy Lai, have also come under pressure in the run-up to the Chinese parliamentary decision. 
 
 China has also repeatedly warned against foreign interference, saying it will not tolerate the use of Hong Kong "as a bridgehead to subvert and infiltrate the mainland." 
 
 The Occupy Central movement has not yet won broad support among Hong Kong's middle class, who are concerned about antagonizing China and disruptions to business. Any strong measures by China or the Hong Kong police could change that. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Pete Sweeney in SHANGHAI, Bobby Yip, Grace Li, Twinnie Siu, Dancy Zhang and Donny Kwok in HONG KONG, Lesley Wroughton and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Paul Tait, Simon Cameron-Moore, Ian Geoghegan and Cynthia Osterman) ||||| Dr Fernando Chui Sai-on was re-elected uncontested as Macau's chief executive yesterday in a choreographed exercise that prompted thousands of residents to demand universal suffrage. 
 
 Chui was selected by a 400-strong election committee made up mainly of pro-Beijing elites and politicians. They gave him 95.96 per cent support, or 380 of the 396 votes cast, up from 95.3 per cent in 2009. 
 
 There were a record 16 blank or invalid votes, however, due partly to an expansion of the election committee from 300 in 2009. 
 
 The election took place a day after the end of an unofficial seven-day "civil referendum" in which 95 per cent of 8,688 residents voted in favour of universal suffrage for the 2019 election. 
 
 There were complaints of rights violations last week after police arrested several organisers of the referendum for allegedly breaching personal data laws. 
 
 Unlike Hong Kong's Basic Law, Macau's mini-constitution makes no mention of universal suffrage as a goal. But calls for democracy have been growing. 
 
 Chui was reluctant to talk about his re-election result. "The statistics are out now, but I will not comment on it," he said. "I am thankful … for the chance to serve the Macau public." 
 
 He did acknowledge shortfalls in his first term - culminating in a May rally against a proposed bill that would have lavished benefits on outgoing chief executives and other government officials. 
 
 "In retrospect, many social problems could have been resolved more expeditiously and effectively", Chui said. 
 
 Bill Chou Kwok-ping, a core referendum campaigner with the New Macau Association, said: "It is time for the government to face up to reality and launch political reform." 
 
 Chou said that all personal data collected in the referendum had been permanently erased from the computer system. 
 
 Fellow activist Sulu Sou Ka-hou said: "The less sincere the government is about political reform, the likelier it is for political activism to grow." 
 
 Chui said he would focus on economic diversification away from the gambling sector - an industry that generates more income in the former Portuguese enclave than anywhere else in the world. "We will … speed up and enhance an appropriate economic diversification and spare no effort to improve social well-being," Chui said in his victory speech. 
 
 At a press conference later, he said: "When we review gambling policies later, we will … resolve the social injustices caused by the domination of a single industry." 
 
 Angela Leong On-kei, fourth wife of gaming tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun and an election committee member, said continued effort was needed to ensure the gaming businesses nurtured the growth of small and medium-sized local enterprises.
– Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong have vowed to make good on their threat of widespread civil disobedience after Beijing crushed hopes of an open election for the territory's chief executive in 2017. China's legislature ruled that candidates must be backed by a nominating committee, a move that means voters are likely to have just two or three candidates to choose from—all of them nominated by a pro-Beijing committee. At a protest last night, one of the pro-democracy movement's leaders called it the "darkest day in the history of Hong Kong's democratic development" and warned that the former British colony's people "are no longer willing to be docile subjects," reports Reuters. Activists in the "Occupy Central" movement plan to paralyze Hong Kong's central business district to protest Beijing's decision. Analysts say Beijing feared that granting Hong Kong's demand for greater democracy would have led to similar demands on the mainland. "In the territory controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, only Hong Kong has some space for free speech, some judicial independence, so it is a mirror for people on the mainland," a dissident in Beijing who was placed under house arrest ahead of the government announcement tells the New York Times. "The outcome of this battle for democracy will also determine future battles for democracy for all of China." In nearby Macau, meanwhile, chief executive Fernando Chui was "re-elected" to another five-year term yesterday by a 400-strong pro-Beijing committee that didn't have any other candidates to choose from, the South China Morning Post reports. Five people were arrested last week over an informal poll on more democracy in the former Portuguese colony.