Hong Kong on Friday began to ease major social distancing measures with bars, gyms, beauty parlours and cinemas reopening their doors after the financial hub largely halted local transmissions of the deadly coronavirus.

Queues formed outside gyms in the semi-autonomous Chinese city on Friday morning for employees to check temperatures as people celebrated the return of some normalcy to the city.

Riot police hit Hong Kong's streets on Friday ahead of planned rallies by pro-democracy protesters who were looking to defy restrictions on gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic to voice anger against authoritarian Chinese rule.

Hong Kong endured a third straight day of political unrest over the Christmas period Thursday as police and pro-democracy protesters clashed inside shopping malls.

Cash-strapped carrier Hong Kong Airlines has had seven idle planes impounded at the city's airport after it failed to make payments, authorities said Tuesday, with the firm hit by a plunge in tourist numbers caused by long-running protests.

The Airport Authority announced the seized planes under an ordinance that addresses overdue charges.

The year 2019 saw an explosion of demonstrations across the world as people demanded an overhaul of entrenched political systems and action on climate change.

Hong Kong police on Thursday entered a ransacked university campus where authorities faced off for days with barricaded pro-democracy protesters, looking for petrol bombs and other dangerous materials left over from the occupation.

Pope Francis voiced concern about nuclear power Monday after meeting with victims of Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster, saying the development of future energy sources must take environmental considerations into account.

Francis didn't explicitly urge a ban on nuclear energy during his emotional encounter with victims. But he recalled that Japan's Catholic bishops called for the abolition of nuclear power plants in the aftermath of the "triple disaster," in which three reactors at a nuclear plant in Fukushima melted down after an earthquake triggered a tsunami.

Murder disguised as suicide. A secret massacre at a subway station. Impending 'terrorist' attacks: false news online is amplifying fear and confusion in Hong Kong as months of pro-democracy unrest turns increasingly violent in the real world.

Pro-democracy demonstrators holed up in a Hong Kong university campus set the main entrance ablaze Monday after police warned they may use live rounds, deepening fears over how nearly six months of unrest across the city will end.

Thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to Hong Kong's streets Friday, defying a warning by Chinese President Xi Jinping, as a campaign of mass disruption extended into a fifth straight day.