“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)

A resident receives a dose of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a rural village on December 01, 2021 in Aringay, La Union province, Philippines. The Philippines is rushing to vaccinate its population as it mulls making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory and amid the looming threat of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The country, which has just approved booster shots for its adult population, launched a three-day national vaccination holiday on November 29 to December 1 with the goal of vaccinating at least nine million additional people. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

Models sit backstage during an outdoor show at Dakar Fashion week on December 12, 2020 just outside Dakar, Senegal. With Senegal's low incidence of Covid-19, Dakar's marquee fashion event looked markedly more normal than its counterparts in other global capitals, whose fashion weeks were heavily curtailed or canceled. (Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly/Getty Images)

Staff members work on sorting and assembling the skeleton of a fossilized Triceratops dinosaur, in Paris, France, 31 August 2021. The skeleton of a Triceratops, an over 66 million years old dinosaur, knicknamed “Big John”, will be auctioned at the Drouot Auction House on 21 October 2021 and is estimated to fetch a total of 1.5 million euros. (Photo by Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA/EFE)

Ariana Lamcellari, 4, holds a sign at a protest against violence, following the charge of a British police officer in the London kidnapping and murder of Sarah Everard, in Dublin, Ireland on March 16, 2021. (Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

A man impersonating North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gestures as he stands before North Korean cheerleaders attending the Unified Korean ice hockey game against Japan during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at the Kwandong Hockey Centre in Gangneung on February 14, 2018. (Photo by Yelim Lee/AFP Photo)

Two Afghan children stand amid piles of garbage next to their home, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, April 18, 2022. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Youths pose for a photo, while doing their homework in an area once home to chop houses, where gangs dismembered enemies, but is now a “humanitarian space” in Buenaventura, Colombia, Wednesday, August 16, 2023. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)