Kabul / / DPA Slowly, slowly the portrait of a girl takes shape on the crumbling, mud brick wall, the round, smiling face of a young girl wearing a head scarf in shades of red, green and white. The girl’s name is Mursal and she’s 12 years old. A couple of years ago she survived a serious attack on …

  DPA A bridge reflected in the water below. A young man standing on a rocky ledge. Maximilian Muench took both photos. He published them on his Instagram page. What’s not to like there? At first glance they might look like ambitious holiday snaps, but in fact Muench was paid for them by the government of a German state, Saxony, …

  Bloomberg China’s central bank said it provided a “temporary liquidity facility” to some major commercial banks for 28 days to help ease a cash crunch before the Lunar New Year holiday. The operation provides more effective liquidity transmission before the week-long break, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement. The PBOC said the new lending facility will …