MANTA, Ecuador The death toll from Ecuador's biggest earthquake in decades soared to at least 233 on Sunday as rescuers using tractors and bare hands hunted desperately for survivors in shattered coastal towns.

The 7.8 magnitude quake struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday and was felt around the Andean nation of 16 million people, causing panic as far away as the highland capital Quito and collapsing buildings and roads in a swath of western towns.

President Rafael Correa, rushing home from a trip to Italy, said the number of fatalities jumped on Sunday to 233.

"The immediate priority is to rescue people in the rubble," he said via Twitter. "Everything can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be recovered, and that's what hurts the most."

More than 1,500 people were injured, authorities said.

Coastal areas nearest the quake were worst affected, especially Pedernales, a rustic tourist spot with beaches and palm trees, which appeared largely flattened.

"There are people trapped in various places, and we are starting rescue operations," Vice President Jorge Glas said on Sunday morning before boarding a plane to the area.

A state of emergency was declared in six provinces.

Authorities said there had been 163 aftershocks, mainly in the Pedernales area.

PEDERNALES 'DESTROYED'

One photo on social media purporting to be the entrance to Pedernales showed a torn-up road with a crushed car in the middle and people standing behind.

Local TV station Televicentro broadcast images from Pedernales showing locals using a small tractor to remove rubble and also searching with their hands for people buried underneath.

Women cried after a corpse was pulled out. Locals said children were trapped.

One man begged for help: "Pedernales is destroyed."

Many people spent the night on the streets.

In Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, rubble lay in the streets and a bridge fell on top of a car.

"It was horrible, it was as if it was going to collapse like cardboard," said Galo Valle, 56, who was guarding a building in the city where windows fell out and parts of walls broke.

"I prayed and fell to my feet to ask God to protect me."

About 13,500 security force personnel were mobilized to keep order around Ecuador, and $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated for the emergency, the government said.

Ramon Solorzano, 46, a car parts merchant in the coastal city of Manta, headed away from built-up areas with his family. Photos from Manta showed Red Cross workers arriving, police hunting through debris, a smashed sculpture and badly damaged buildings.

"Most people are out in the streets with backpacks on, heading for higher ground," Solorzano said, speaking in a trembling voice on a WhatsApp phone call. "The streets are cracked. The power is out and phones are down."

Parts of Quito were without power or phone service for several hours, but the city government said those services had been restored and there were no reports of casualties in the city.

WORST QUAKE IN 37 YEARS

The government called it the worst quake in the country since 1979. In that disaster, 600 people were killed and 20,000 injured, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In international aid, Venezuela, Chile and Mexico were sending personnel and supplies, the Correa government said.

A tsunami warning was lifted on Saturday night, but coastal residents were urged to seek higher ground in case tides rise.

"At first it (the quake) was light, but it lasted a long time and got stronger," said Maria Jaramillo, 36, a resident of Guayaquil, describing windows breaking and pieces falling off roofs.

"I was on the seventh floor and the light went off in the whole sector, and we evacuated. People were very anxious in the street. ... We left barefoot."

The OPEC member country said oil production was not affected, but closed its main refinery of Esmeraldas, located near the epicenter, as a precaution.

Residents on the Galapagos islands far off Ecuador's coast, which are home to numerous rare species, said they had not been affected by the quake, though they were anxious.

The Ecuadorean quake followed two large and deadly quakes that struck Japan since Thursday. Both countries are located on the seismically active "Ring of Fire" that circles the Pacific, but according to the U.S. Geological Survey large quakes separated by such long distances would probably not be related.

"Even the earth's rocky crust is not rigid enough to transfer stress efficiently over thousands of miles," it said on its website. Quakes can cause other big quakes within a range of hundreds of miles, but can cause only small, brief quakes at a distance of thousands of miles, it said.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Cristina Munoz in Quito, Yuri Garcia in Guayaquil, Girish Gupta in Bogota, Peter Graff in London; writing by Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Peter Graff, Kieran Murray and Jonathan Oatis)

BRASILIA Brazil's lower house of Congress will decide on Sunday whether to recommend impeaching President Dilma Rousseff on charges of manipulating budgetary accounts, in a vote that could hasten the end of 13 years of leftist Workers Party rule.

The political crisis, which comes amid Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, has deeply divided the South American country and sparked a fight between Rousseff and Vice President Michel Temer, who would take over if she is dismissed.

In a frenzied round of last-minute deal-making Rousseff appeared to be clawing back the votes of some wavering lawmakers but polls showed the leader still lacks the one-third of votes or abstentions needed in the 513-seat lower house to avoid being sent for trial in the Senate.

Rousseff's charismatic predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been leading the deal-making to keep her in office and drafted in governors from several states to pressure legislators on Saturday, swinging momentum back in Rousseff's favor.

"The governors' participation is proving decisive," said Paulo Teixeira, one of the Workers' Party's leaders in the lower house.

On Sunday morning, pro- and anti-impeachment protesters gathered before making their way to the grassy esplanade in front of Congress. There a 2-metre (6.5-foot) high wall has been erected stretching for more than 1 km (0.6 of a mile) to separate both sides, a symbol of the stark political divide in one of the world's most unequal societies.

Buses carrying some of the thousands of police being deployed in the capital Brasilia were arriving and officers getting into position. Further protests are expected in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from both sides taking to the streets before voting starts at 2 pm (1700 GMT). The vote is expected to run into Sunday evening.

Polls suggest more than 60 percent of Brazil's 200 million people support impeaching Rousseff, whose inner circle has been tainted by a vast corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA).

The Workers Party, however, still musters strong support among millions of working class Brazilians, who credit its welfare programs with pulling their families out of poverty during the last decade.

In the car park of Brasilia's soccer stadium, some of these supporters waved red flags and set off fire crackers, as they prepared to march on Congress.

"There won't be a coup, there will be a fight," the crowd shouted, referring to Rousseff's view that the move to impeach her has no legal grounding and is a coup d'état.

PARALYZED GOVERNMENT

The impeachment crisis has paralyzed activity in Brasilia, just four months before the country is due to host the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and as it seeks to battle an epidemic of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in newborns.

While Rousseff herself has not been personally charged with corruption, many of the lawmakers who will decide her fate on Sunday have.

Congresso em Foco, a prominent watchdog group in Brasilia, says more than 300 of the legislators who will vote on Sunday - well over half the chamber - are under investigation for corruption, fraud or electoral crimes.

If Rousseff loses Sunday's vote, the Senate must decide whether there are legal grounds to hear the case against her, a decision expected in early May.

Should it agree to do so, Rousseff would be suspended from office and Temer would automatically take over.

Financial markets in Brazil have rallied strongly on hopes that Rousseff's dismissal would usher in a more business-friendly Temer administration. Sources close to the vice president told Reuters he was considering a senior executive at Goldman Sachs in Brazil for a top economic post.

Whoever governs the country in coming months will inherit a toxic political environment, a divided Congress, rising unemployment and an expected contraction of four percent this year in the world's ninth largest economy.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV, Writing by Daniel Flynn and Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Mary Milliken and Stephen Powell)

LONDON British police have bailed one of five people arrested last week on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism, West Midlands Police in central England said on Sunday.

British police arrested five people last week as part of an investigation which a security source said was linked to the attacks in Paris and Brussels. Four were arrested in Birmingham, central England, and one at London's Gatwick Airport.

West Midlands Police said in a statement that four people, three men and one woman, were still being questioned after securing warrants of further detention, while a 59-year-old man had been bailed "with strict conditions".

"The arrests were pre-planned and intelligence-led. There was no risk to the public at any time and there is no information to suggest an attack in the UK was being planned," said Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, who leads on counter terrorism for the West Midlands.

British media have reported that Belgian Mohamed Abrini, suspected of involvement in the Islamic State attacks in Brussels, had travelled to Birmingham last year and taken photos of a soccer stadium.

Abrini, who investigators say has confessed to depositing a bomb at Brussels airport, is also wanted in connection with the Paris attacks.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected planner of the Paris attacks who was killed by French police late last year, is also reported by local media to have visited Birmingham and had photographs of places in the city on his smartphone.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

MOSCOW Russia's military rejected criticism by U.S. European Command on Sunday that a Russian jet had made aggressive manoeuvres near a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea, a second incident in the region between the Cold War-era foes in the past week.

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia's military has been beefed up by increased spending and ambitious rearmament, while Moscow, which accuses NATO of expanding towards Russia's borders, tries to pursue a more assertive foreign policy.

The latest incident occurred on Thursday as a Russian Su-27 fighter "performed erratic and aggressive manoeuvres", flying within 50 feet of a U.S. RC-135 aircraft, U.S. European Command spokesman Danny Hernandez said, replying to a question from CNN.

The United States had protested to Moscow, Hernandez said. "The unsafe and unprofessional actions of a single pilot have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries," he said.

Russia dismissed the report as "running counter to reality", saying its air defences had had to scramble a fighter jet after detecting a high-speed unidentified target over the Baltic Sea heading for its borders.

After making "visual contact" with the Russian Su-27, the American reconnaissance plane changed its course away from Russia's borders, defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The flight of the Russian warplane was in "strict conformity with international laws ... and there were no emergency situations," he said.

That incident occurred just two days after two Russian Su-24 bombers buzzed the Donald Cook, a U.S. guided missile destroyer, in the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, simulating attack passes, with a U.S. military official describing them as one of the most aggressive interactions in recent memory.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned as dangerous and provocative the military encounter in the Baltic Sea.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Additional reporting by Anton Kolodyazhny in Moscow; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

BERLIN The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Sunday Islam is not compatible with the German constitution and vowed to press for bans on minarets and burqas at its party congress in two weeks' time.

The AfD punished Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats in three regional elections last month, profiting from popular angst about how Germany can cope with an influx of migrants, over a million of whom arrived last year.

"Islam is in itself a political ideology that is not compatible with the constitution," AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

"We are in favour of a ban on minarets, on muezzins and a ban on full veils," added Storch, who is a member of the European Parliament.

Merkel's conservatives have also called for an effective ban on the burqa, saying the full body covering worn by some Muslim women should not be worn in public. But they have not said Islam is incompatible with Germany's constitution.

The AfD's rise, which has coincided with strong gains by other European anti-immigrant parties including the National Front in France, has punctured the centrist consensus around which the mainstream parties have formed alliances in Germany.

Last month, the party grabbed 24 percent of the vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, surpassing even the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel's coalition partner in Berlin. The AfD, founded in 2013, also performed strongly in two other states.

The party's rise has been controversial. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, has said Germany's far-right, led by the AfD party, is using language similar to that of Hitler's Nazis.

Such accusations have not swayed the party from its anti-immigration course.

"Islam is not a religion like Catholic or Protestant Christianity, but rather intellectually always associated with the takeover of the state," said Alexander Gauland, who leads the AfD in Brandenburg.

"That is why the Islamisation of Germany is a danger," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

(Writing by Paul Carrel, editing by Louise Heavens)

DUBAI Iran showed off parts of its new Russian S-300 missile defense system during National Army Day on Sunday, where President Hassan Rouhani said the country's armed forces were no threat to neighboring countries.

Every year, Iran's armed forces hold parades across the country to mark Army Day. In a ceremony in Tehran, broadcast live on state television, trucks carrying the missiles drove past a podium where Rouhani and military commanders were standing. Soldiers also marched passed the podium and fighter jets and bombers took part in an air display.

"The power of our armed forces is not aimed at any of our neighbors ... Its purpose is to defend Islamic Iran and act as an active deterrent," Rouhani was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA, in a speech at the Army Day ceremony.

Russia delivered the first part of the S-300 missile defense system to Iran last week, one of the most advanced systems of its kind that can engage multiple aircraft and ballistic missiles around 150 km (90 miles) away.

Russia has said it canceled a contract to deliver S-300s to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West. President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban in April 2015, after an interim agreement that paved the way for July's full nuclear deal with Iran that ended international sanctions.

Since then, Iran has upset the United States by carrying out four ballistic missile tests, which the United States and its European allies said were in defiance of the United Nations resolution adopted in July.

Rouhani said on Sunday that during the nuclear talks Iranian negotiators also aimed to maintain and boost the country's military capabilities.

Iran has two armies, a regular one which operates as a national defensive force, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that was created after the Revolution to protect the Islamic Republic against both internal and external adversaries.

The army has the biggest ground force in Iran and IRGC is in control of growing arsenal of ballistic missiles.

In its first overseas operation since the Revolution, the regular army said earlier this month that it had deployed some of its special forces and commandos to Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war there.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin. Editing by Jane Merriman)

ROME Italy went to the polls on Sunday in a referendum on offshore oil and gas drilling rights, a vote which Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has said he hopes people will not take part in.

For the ballot to be valid, more than 50 percent of the Italian electorate must vote but Renzi has urged people to stay away, saying that the referendum is unnecessary and might end up hurting the economy.

It would be a blow to Renzi if substantial numbers did turn out, suggesting voters were ready to snub him just weeks before major local elections. But opinion polls have indicated that a quorum will not be reached.

The referendum focuses on whether Italy should stop renewing offshore drilling licenses within 12 miles (20 km) of the coast. New drilling concessions are no longer being handed out, but the government says old agreements should be kept in play.

Voting runs from 7.00 am (0500 GMT) to 11.00 pm (2100 GMT).

At 10 GMT, midday in Italy, the turnout was 8.36 percent, according to the ministry for internal affairs.

The ballot was proposed by a number of regional assemblies, most of them run by Renzi's own centre-left Democratic Party, which object to drilling platforms because of worries about the environment, as well as the impact on their tourist industries.

Italy imports around 90 percent of its energy needs and successive governments have looked to boost domestic production to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers such as Russia's Gazprom.

There are 69 exploration concessions in Italian waters, most of them gas, the industry ministry says. Of these, 44 fall within the 12-mile range, most of them run by Italy's Eni.

If the referendum succeeds, these 44 fields will be shut when their concessions expire, even if they are still workable.

"This not a political referendum, but concerns 11,000 workers, their future and Italy's energy supply chain," Renzi told reporters on Friday.

Environmental watchdog Legambiente and other green groups say domestic oil and gas production is minimal and that a continued focus on fossil fuels takes Italy further away from its renewable energy and carbon targets.

Gas production from offshore fields inside the 12-mile area currently accounts for around 3 percent of Italian consumption while oil output in the area makes up just 1 percent.

While the short-term impact of a "Yes" vote would be minimal it would have long-term implications, as by 2027 the offshore fields could account for more than 20 percent of Italy’s oil and gas production, Alessandro Pozzi, an analyst at Mediobanca, said.

The referendum comes at an awkward time for Renzi. An influence-peddling case centred on the country's main landlocked oil producing area triggered the resignation of the industry minister two weeks ago.

Opponents are seeking to use the scandal to bring voters out to test the government's mettle ahead of June local elections, in which Renzi's party risks losing control of several cities.

While the prime minister has played down the drilling referendum, he has said he will resign if he loses another referendum slated for October on constitutional reform.

(Additional reporting by Steve Jewkes in Milan; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

LONDON A growing roster of developing states are turning to their compatriots abroad to raise cash by marketing "diaspora bonds", a funding strategy successfully pioneered by India and Israel but sometimes tricky to imitate.

Some 250 million people, around 3 percent of the world population, live outside their native countries, according to World Bank data from 2013. They are an important source of funding for their homelands: last year they sent home around $440 billion - three times more than global development aid.

Cash raised by governments directly by marketing securities to their overseas citizens represents just a tiny fraction of that, but looks set to grow, judging by a number of recent announcements.

Egypt has announced debt certificates denominated in dollars and euros to ease hard currency shortages.

Kosovo, which estimates a third of people of Kosovan descent live abroad, proposed issuing bonds for expatriates last month. Sri Lanka discussed such bonds last year, and Nigeria has tried to revive plans for a diaspora issue after naming Goldman Sachs and Stanbic as advisors on a proposal in 2014.

But not all such efforts succeed. Many countries overestimate the generosity of their natives abroad. One high-profile example was Greece, which proved unable to raise a hoped-for $3 billion from the million-strong Greek community in the United States at the height of its debt crisis in 2011.

Ethiopia's 2009 bond to fund a hydro-electric dam failed chiefly because it could not convince investors it would repay the debt. Some also objected to the project on environmental grounds.

In 2009 and 2010, Nepal raised a fraction of its target when it offered yields below 10 percent over five years on rupiah bonds - well below local rates at the time. Moldova also decided not to issue diaspora bonds, concluding that Moldovans abroad who were willing to invest in its currency would probably prefer local bank accounts that pay 25 percent interest.

"Many governments need to really look at themselves in the mirror, as to what has been their historic relationship with their diaspora and use that reality in their calculation when they offer investments," said Liesl Riddle, a George Washington University professor, who has studied diaspora financing.

TAPPING THE POOL

The lure of a diaspora as an investment pool is clear.

Investors with a personal link to a country are often happier than other outsiders to take risks in the local currency, and at lower yields, says Dilip Ratha, manager of the World Bank's Migration and Remittances Unit, who advises governments on diaspora funding.

They can also be more willing stick around in a crisis than the big funds that dominate emerging market debt, he added.

"When you have hundreds of institutional investors...there is a big probability of herd mentality: You see a little bit of a scare and run for the door," Ratha said. That is less of a problem with a wider pool of expatriate investors scattered across the globe, he added.

Governments dreaming of cheap funds from loyal expatriates in hard times can look to the example of India. Diaspora funds bailed it out from a 1991 balance of payments crisis and raised $4.2 billion in 1998 to offset international sanctions imposed after nuclear tests, double the amount initially sought.

Israel, which has raised more than $40 billion via diaspora bonds since 1951, saw uptake soar during its 1967 war.

Some countries have gone to great lengths to forge lasting emotional ties that could translate into investments one day, said Riddle, highlighting Georgia, which has established a ministry of diaspora affairs and organizes regular get-togethers in the capital Tbilisi for overseas Georgians visiting the homeland.

These offer a mix of entertainment, sports and investment pitches. The ministry has even donated its own Christian icon for expatriates to pray to when returning home.

Other initiatives are more ad hoc. Within three months of the imposition of the nuclear sanctions in 1998, Indian officials had brought together expatriate surgeons and fund managers in a Manhattan restaurant.

It is not only governments who are after diaspora cash. Riddle said she has held meetings with several big asset management firms which are considering launching country-specific funds to be marketed to diasporas.

Homestrings, a platform created to put potential diaspora investors in touch with opportunities, has raised funds for infrastructure projects in Kenya, and offers U.S.-based Macedonians the chance to invest in small businesses back home.

With falling remittance costs, advances in technology and the movement of people that shows no sign of abating, Riddle says diaspora investments can only grow.

"Diaspora's involvement - psychological, social, economic and even political - is much higher than it was five years ago," she said. "The diaspora is becoming a transnational actor here."

(Additional reporting by Sujata Rao in London, Alexander Tanas in Chisinau, Fatos Bytyci in Pristina, Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi, Lisa Barrington in Beirut and other Reuters bureaux; editing by Peter Graff)

GAMLA, Golan Heights Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday that Israel would never relinquish the Golan Heights, in a signal to Russia and the United States that the strategic plateau should be excluded from any deal on Syria's future.

"The Golan Heights will remain in Israel's hands forever," Netanyahu told his cabinet, which met for the first time on the Golan since the area was captured from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed in 1981, in a move that has not won international recognition.

Netanyahu, who made a similar statement during an election campaign in 2009, said he had spoken by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday and told him that Israel's security must not be compromised by any peace agreement to end Syria's five-year-old civil war.

That would mean, Netanyahu said, that "at the end of the day Iranian, Hezbollah and ISIS forces would be expelled from Syrian territory".

Iran, one of Israel's main foes, as well as Tehran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, have supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the conflict against rebel forces and Islamic State militants.

Echoing a previous call from the Jewish Home party, a key ultranationalist partner in his governing coalition, Netanyahu urged the international community "to recognise finally that the Golan will remain permanently under Israeli sovereignty".

Officially, the Golan was chosen as the venue for the cabinet session as a way to mark the anniversary of Netanyahu's election victory a year ago.

But the timing was seen by some political commentators as linked to talks Netanyahu is due to hold with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Syria, where Moscow's military and diplomatic interventions are crucial.

Though Russia is committed to keeping Syria intact under Assad, it has not publicly broached the future of the Golan.

"Whatever happens beyond the border, the (Golan) line is not going to change," Netanyahu said, in his remarks on his conversation with Kerry.

Having sent in Russian forces last year to turn the tide against a rebellion raging since 2011, Putin, who meets Netanyahu in Moscow on Thursday, wants to preserve Assad's central rule as part of national reconciliation efforts. Other powers want him gone.

While formally neutral on the civil war next door, Israel has predicted Syria's sectarian partition is inevitable.

Past U.S.-backed Israeli-Syrian peace efforts were predicated on a return of the Golan, where some 23,000 Israelis now live alongside roughly the same number of Druse Arabs loyal to Damascus.

(Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

HONG KONG At least 1,000 protesters thronged the arrivals hall of Hong Kong's international airport on Sunday to rally against what they see as an abuse of privilege involving the Hong Kong leader and his daughter.

While there were no reports of flight delays or cancellations, the protest could prove an embarrassment for the Beijing-backed Leung Chun-ying, who many expect to seek a second term of office next year when his five-year term ends.

Chanting "Safeguard the sky of Hong Kong" and holding signs demanding Leung step down, the protesters staged a three-hour sit-in as international travelers streamed by at one of Asia's busiest aviation hubs.

The demonstrators said they were angered by a March incident involving one of Leung's daughters at the airport after she accidentally left a carry-on bag outside. Some accused Leung of exercising his privileges as Hong Kong's leader to get airport staff to deliver the bag to his daughter in the airport's restricted area even though regulations say that bags must go through security with their owners. 

"It's not fair asking frontline staff to bring in something (to the airport's restricted area) which is unidentified or unattended for a period of time," said Dora Lai, a senior member the Hong Kong Cabin Crew Association, which organized the protest

Organizers said about 2,500 people participated in the rally, while police put the turnout at 1,000 at its peak.

Leung stressed he had not put pressure on airport authority officials or used any privilege over his daughter's bag, but said he did speak to airline staff using his daughter's mobile phone.

The government said it understood the public's concern about aviation security, but that the bag went through security checks before entering the restricted area, and aviation safety was not in any way compromised by the incident.

An investigation is continuing into the matter.

Some tourists said they understood the protesters' cause but the controversy had tarnished their impressions of Hong Kong.

    "It should not have this kind of thing," said Maraiah Gavarasu, a Malaysian on holiday in Hong Kong. "You should have peace and calm. So for foreigners it looks like, hey, something (is) wrong, you know? It's a bad impression."

The embattled Leung has seen his popularity ratings reach new lows this year, as he has struggled to mitigate growing social tensions after massive youth-led pro-democracy protests in late 2014 put pressure on Beijing's Communist Party leaders to grant the city full democracy.

Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 amid promises that Beijing would allow the financial hub a high degree of autonomy, including an independent judiciary.

(Editing by James Pomfret and Andrew Bolton)