“The popularity of the Internet in China has driven the explosive growth of profitable Web companies and made fortunes for some Chinese entrepreneurs despite government controls on what the public can see online. The number of mainland Internet users rose to 513 million in December, up 12 percent from a year earlier, the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Center said”. – AP Business Writer

Photo: Shi Yongxin, abbot of the Shaolin Temple, works on the computer April 8, 2005 in Dengfeng, Henan Province, China. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images)

Due to the influence of Sci-Fi movies, many of us have an obsession with giant robots. How cool would it be to ride a gigantic robotic dinosaur or elephant? It would be even cooler to control one! Regretfully, the modern technologies are not yet sophisticated enough to fulfill this dream. Pierre Orefice and François Delarozière, however, came very close. These two artists have made it their goal to turn Nantes, France, into a hot tourist destination spot for people who love robots. In their project of Machines de l'île in Nantes, they have created a whole park of robotic monstrosities, ranging from a giant 3 story high elephant to a 2 meter long centipede crawling on a rail track.

Houthi followers perform the traditional Baraa dance ahead of a demonstration against the Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen's capital Sanaa August 24, 2015. The nothern-based Houthis, a Shi'ite Muslim group, took control of Sanaa last September. Arab countries intervened in the conflict in March to halt a Houthi advance into the south which caused the Saudi-backed government to flee to Riyadh from its refuge in the southern port of Aden. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

Residents with their empty containers crowd around a municipal tanker to fetch water in New Delhi, India, February 22, 2016. The Indian army has taken control of a canal that supplies three-fifths of Delhi's water, the state's chief minister said on Monday, raising hope that a water crisis in the metropolis of more than 20 million people can be averted. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

Deputies of the opposition fight with deputies of the majority for a second time in two days, during the second session of the newly elected Ukrainian parliament in Kiev on December 13, 2012. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

It is already one of the world’s most iconic cities, but this incredible collection shows how much Paris has changed over the course of the past century. The collection, by French photographer Julien Knez, shows Paris in the 1940s against a backdrop of how the same places look today. Knez says he put the striking collection together to celebrate the 71st anniversary of the city’s liberation from Nazi control in August 1944. Here: Soldiers outside the Hotel De Ville in the 1940s. (Photo by Julien Knez/Caters News)

“In 1967, Zhang Yaxin was 34 and working as a photojournalist at China’s state-controlled Xinhua News Agency when he was assigned to a top-secret government project. He was to be the official photographer of a new arts program led by Chairman Mao and his wife – the Model Operas. Though he was not to know it then, Zhang would spend the next seven years documenting the evolution of one of the most dramatic and elaborate attempts to redefine artistic sensibilities in modern art history”. – Chengcheng Jiang via TIME. Photo: Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, 1971. (Photo by Zhang Yaxin/Courtesy See+ Gallery, Beijing)

Originally known to the First Nations of the Okanagan Valley as Khiluk, which was- and remains today revered as a sacred site producing therapeutic waters. During World War I the minerals of Spotted Lake were used in manufacturing ammunition. Later the area came under the control of the Ernest Smith Family, for a term of about 40 years. In 1979 Smith attempted to create interest in a spa at the lake. The First Nations responded with an effort to buy the lake; in October 2001 they finally struck a deal. First Nations arranged the purchase of 22 hectares of land for a total of $720,000, and contributed about 20% of the cost. The Indian Affairs Department paid the remainder.