SYDNEY: Police say they will not charge an Australian teenager or a senator for a spat in which the boy cracked an egg on the politician’s head and the man retaliated.
Victoria state police said in a statement Tuesday that after reviewing footage and interviewing both participants, they had issued an official caution only to 17-year-old Will Connolly. They said they concluded Sen. Fraser Anning had acted in self-defense when he twice struck the teen afterward.
Connolly gained fame as “Egg Boy” for egging Anning in Melbourne last month, after the senator controversially blamed the Christchurch mosque massacre on Muslim immigration.
Anning’s colleagues in Australia’s Parliament passed a censure motion against him last week, saying his statements blaming the victims were ugly and dangerous.
Police won’t charge Australian teen or senator over egg spat
Police won’t charge Australian teen or senator over egg spat
- Connolly gained fame as “Egg Boy” for egging Anning in Melbourne last month, after the senator controversially blamed the Christchurch mosque massacre on Muslim immigration
Proposed EU mission to blocked pipeline awaiting Ukraine approval
- European Union member Hungary has in turn blocked a vital $106-billion EU loan to Ukraine
- “We have proposed a mission to inspect the pipeline to Ukraine,” said Itkonen
BRUSSELS: The EU said Thursday it had proposed a mission to inspect a blocked oil pipeline at the center of a row between Ukraine and Hungary — and was waiting for Kyiv to respond.
Hungary and Slovakia accuse Kyiv of deliberately delaying reopening the Druzhba pipeline, which pumps Russian oil to the two landlocked states and Ukraine says was damaged by Russian strikes in January.
European Union member Hungary has in turn blocked a vital 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) EU loan to Ukraine as well as a fresh round of sanctions on Russia.
“We have proposed a mission to inspect the pipeline to Ukraine,” Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a spokeswoman for the European Commission told journalists in Brussels. “We are awaiting their response.”
The suggestion of an EU fact-finding mission came on the back of two weeks of “intense discussions and contact with Ukraine on this issue,” she added.
On Wednesday, Budapest said it had sent its own mission to assess the pipeline and hold talks with Ukrainian authorities — only for Kyiv to deny there were any discussions planned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week it could take four to six weeks to make the pipeline operational again.
The dispute comes as Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has ramped up political attacks on Ukraine ahead of a closely fought parliamentary election in Hungary on April 12.
Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has also urged the 27-nation bloc to suspend sanctions on Russian oil and gas to counter rising prices since the Middle East war erupted.
