Briefly

UNITED KINGDOM

Council sees Banksy mural as a nuisance

British street artist Banksy marked Valentine's Day on Tuesday with an inimitable statement about violence against women, but local politicians saw only a nuisance. A Banksy mural appeared in Margate in southeastern England, depicting a 1950s-style housewife with a swollen eye and a missing tooth seemingly shoving her male partner into a real chest freezer. But minutes later, council workers turned up to throw the freezer into a van, despite protests from locals taking pictures of the mural, at the end of a terrace of houses in a rundown part of the seaside town.

INDIA

Record wheat harvest forecast this year

India's 2023 wheat production is likely to rise 4.1 percent to a record 112.2 million metric tons, the government said on Tuesday, as higher prices prompted farmers to expand crop-growing areas with high-yielding varieties and the weather remained favorable. India, the world's second-biggest producer and the world's second-biggest consumer of wheat, banned exports in May after a sharp sudden rise in temperatures clipped output, even as exports picked up to meet global shortfall triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

CANADA

World's largest ice rink may not open

The Canadian capital's iconic Rideau Canal Skateway, the largest outdoor rink in the world and a UNESCO heritage site, may not open this winter for the first time in five decades, due to a lack of ice. Ottawa is in the grips of its third-warmest winter ever recorded, according to Environment Canada, with temperatures hovering just below freezing through most of December and January. They are now forecast to climb. For the canal to freeze up, temperatures must hold steady at — 10 to-20 C for almost two weeks.

GERMANY

Operator warns of 'massive disruptions'

Strikes planned at seven German airports for Friday will lead to "massive disruptions", the operator of the country's largest airport, in Frankfurt, warned on Wednesday, setting the stage for another day of travel disruption caused by wage disputes. The German trade union Verdi on Wednesday called on workers at airports in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dortmund, Hanover and Bremen to go on a 24-hour strike, saying collective bargaining efforts had made little progress.

Agencies Via Xinhua