Briefly: Europe

SPAIN

Protesters end 3-week camp

MADRID — Young demonstrators who camped out in one of Madrid’s busiest squares to protest bleak economic prospects began leaving the plaza to squads of cleaners Sunday after voting to end more than three weeks of vociferous protest.

The protests began May 15 and spread to cities across Spain and elsewhere in Europe, striking a chord with hundreds of thousands of sympathizers.

Some participants voted to continue the protest against high unemployment and political corruption, but most raised their hands at a meeting Wednesday giving their approval to a proposal to take down the camp at Puerta del Sol opposite town hall.

“We all feel a bit sad, but the future of this movement is progress,” protester Raul Rincon said. “Cleaning up, leaving and moving forward is a step that needed to be taken for our movement to grow up.”

Cleaners, most of them demonstrators, began to move in to scrub the square clean as fellow activists angry over Spain’s jobless rate dismantled camp and moved on to other urban locations bearing placards saying, “We’re not leaving, we’re expanding.”

Spanish authorities at times appeared not to know how to deal with protests, which readily acknowledged that recent pro-democracy uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East had served as an inspiration.

CROATIA

Leader slams violence at gay-pride parade

ZAGREB — Croatian President Ivo Josipovic on Sunday condemned violence at the first gay-rights march in the coastal town of Split, which left a dozen people injured, describing it as “shameful and sad.”

“It is sad and shameful that any group of people is exposed to violence and such rough attacks,” Mr. Josipovic said, quoted by HINA news agency, in a comment on the incidents on Saturday.

He said the violence in Split - just a day after the European Commission gave the Balkan country the green light to complete EU accession talks and become the bloc’s next member on July 1, 2013 - has “shown that there are some non-European parts of our society.”

But he insisted that it is “not Croatia’s real face.”

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor warned that violence and hatred were “something that cannot be tolerated in Croatia.”

Some 10,000 opponents of the gay-pride parade in Split hurled stones, bottles, bricks, cigarette lighters and stones at around 200 participants who had to be eventually evacuated by police vehicles.

A dozen people were injured, four of them journalists.

BRITAIN

Cameron pledges support for child vaccines

LONDON — British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that Britain would increase its funding to a Bill Gates-backed alliance for child vaccination when it holds a conference in London on Monday.

Writing in the Observer newspaper Sunday, Mr. Cameron said a greater contribution to the GAVI Alliance was in line with his decision to maintain Britain’s international aid budget at a time when it was making cuts in many other areas.

“At a time when we are making spending cuts at home, our decision to protect our aid budget abroad is a controversial one. But I am convinced it is right,” Mr. Cameron said.

GAVI Alliance donors and potential donors will meet in London on Monday to attempt to make up a funding shortfall in its aim to immunize 243 million children in 72 countries and avert 4 million deaths by 2015.

GAVI, funded by the foundation set up by the Gates Foundation and by several countries, and already has vaccinated 288 million children.

RUSSIA

Police break up protest on national holiday

MOSCOW — Police detained dozens of opposition activists to prevent them from demonstrating in central Moscow on a national holiday celebrating Russia’s emergence as an independent state as the Soviet Union crumbled.

This year the holiday, now called Russia Day, fell exactly 20 years after Boris Yeltsin was first elected president of Russia when it was still part of the Soviet Union.

Tens of thousands of people were expected on Red Square for a pop concert and fireworks display Sunday evening.

Police were out in force to prevent any unrest, and they moved quickly to prevent the opposition protest. An Associated Press reporter saw protesters being put into buses. The state RIA Novosti news agency said 28 were detained.