The Hong Kong government is to meet student leaders for talks amid pro-democracy street protests that are now in their fourth week.

Protesters still remain on the streets in Mong Kok and other parts of Hong Kong

Students at the talks, which will be broadcast live, want the public to have a free vote in the election for the territory's chief executive in 2017.

But both Hong Kong and Beijing officials have said this is impossible.

The protests have blocked key parts of the city, though numbers have fallen since they began.

The BBC's Juliana Liu in Hong Kong says that although demonstrators know the chances of getting what they want are almost zero, they are staying on the streets to show authorities that the struggle for democratic reform is a long-term fight.

'Numbers game'

The government team will be led by the city's most senior civil servant, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, and the students will be represented by five leaders.

Meetings have been called off twice in recent weeks.

The talks, due to start at 18:00 local time (11:00 BST), are expected to focus on the students' demands that the government in Beijing reconsider its ruling on election procedures in light of the protests.

The meeting comes a day after Chief Executive CY Leung reiterated his objection to open elections, saying they would result in populist policies.

Student demonstrators have set up study areas, with fluorescent lighting, at the Admiralty protest site

"If it's entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 (£1,110) a month," he told the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

"Then you would end up with that kind of politics and policies."

Mr Leung said problems such as the lack of social mobility and unaffordable housing were "not acceptable", and the government needed to do more to solve them.

But he argued that Beijing's position, under which candidates will be screened by a "broadly representative" nominating committee before they go to an open election, was better.

He pointed to the fact that his own appointment in 2012 had to be endorsed by a 1,200-member committee which was made up of people from various sectors of society and professions.

Mr Leung said the make-up of the nomination committee might offer room for negotiation. "There could be a compromise, somewhere in between, by making the nomination committee more acceptable to these students," he said.

Source: BBC