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 ...

  Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s largest mortgage lender, is set to pick Frankfurt as its base to maintain access to the European Union’s single market following Brexit, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The UK bank will choose to convert its German branch into a subsidiary and plans to apply for an extension to its ...

  Bloomberg Some of India’s biggest lenders are asking the central bank to ease debt-management rules as they try to restructure about Rs87,000 crore ($13 billion) owed by Essar Steel Ltd. and Bhushan Steel Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter. Lenders including State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank Ltd. are aiming to restructure the debt ...

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc is sharpening divisions within its investment-banking bonus pool this year, giving more lucrative awards to top performers while slashing compensation for those ranked at the bottom, people familiar with the moves said. The bank is also cutting 100 senior staff at the managing director and director level across both the banking and trading units, reductions ...

  Reuters JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to pay $55 million to settle a US Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against minority borrowers by allowing mortgage brokers to charge them more for home loans, a person familiar with the matter said. The US Justice Department complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, accused the bank of willfully violating the ...

  Bloomberg The push to bring self-driving cars to American roads got a significant boost when the nation’s chief auto safety regulator essentially cleared Tesla Motors Inc.’s Autopilot system of fault in a fatal 2016 crash. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that the owner of a Tesla Motors Inc. Model S sedan that drove itself into the ...

  Bloomberg Canada will consider pursuing a new multilateral Pacific Rim trade deal now that President Donald Trump has signaled the US is abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in an interview shortly before Trump’s inauguration Canada would consider all its options with fellow TPP states, including whether a new deal can be salvaged without US participation. ...

  SAN FRANCISCO / AP Originally cast in a starring role, Netflix’s original DVD-by-mail service has been reduced to a bit player — one that may eventually get killed off as the company focuses on its booming video streaming service. Netflix’s fourth-quarter earnings report released Wednesday provided the latest glimpse at the DVD service’s descent into oblivion as the streaming ...